Crash Landing
by lcf328
Summary: Josh has never liked small airplanes. Set during King Corn; canon applies up until, but not including all of, that episode.
1. Chapter 1

**Josh has never liked small airplanes. Set during King Corn; canon applies up until (but not including all of) that episode.**

**Shocker: no, I'm not Aaron Sorkin. Therefore, I don't own the characters from The West Wing, or the pieces of dialogue taken from the show.**

**Many thanks to HarmonyLover for beta reading this, and to chai4anne, for kicking ideas around with me and making this a better story.**

**Also, I know little or nothing about airplanes or aviation, so please forgive any mistakes I've made, or will make, in that area…**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Donna sat across from the slightly overweight, balding airline mechanic, in a small living room in a home in the middle of rural Iowa that looked to be in desperate need of repair. She was with Christine and Greg, two of her colleagues on the Russell campaign, and Peter Burton was the first stop on the list of "fringe candidates" they were visiting that day, a collection of eccentrics who had filed to run for President and whom they hoped to get into the upcoming debate. The idea was that stacking the debate with lunatics would make Russell look presidential by comparison, and cause Hoynes to be lumped in with the fringe candidates. "Just another clown," as Will had said when they'd discussed the strategy over a late dinner the night before.

"So let me get this straight," Peter stared at the three of them. "The Democratic Party is actually taking an interest in my campaign?"

"We are," Donna gave him her most sincere smile, though she couldn't deny that the guy gave her the creeps. In fact, one look at Mr. Burton was causing her to have serious doubts about the whole strategy. This guy was clearly not even close to being presidential material; Donna wouldn't even trust him to look after her dog. If she had a dog, which of course she didn't. How could she have a dog when she hadn't seen the inside of her apartment in at least three weeks? She was actually thinking of subletting the unit, since it seemed to make no sense to keep paying rent for an apartment she never used anymore.

"We read over your campaign materials on your website, and we were all really impressed," Christine added, bringing Donna's thoughts back to the task at hand.

_Two recently released federal inmates, an airline mechanic, two men over the age of 80, a comedian, a nun…_ she remembered the list of candidates Christine had rattled off at the hotel dining room the night before. Out of the group of them, she'd have guessed the two recently-released inmates would be the craziest, not the airline mechanic, but now she was having a hard time imagining how any of the others could beat this guy.

"What did you say your names were, again?" Peter asked.

"I hope you understand why we can't tell you," Donna responded conspiratorially. They were under strict instructions not to give any indication of who they were or whom they worked for; if it got out to the media that the Vice President's campaign was trying to recruit these losers for the debate, it would be an embarrassment to say the least. She smiled at Peter, giving him the line they'd agreed on. "If our bosses ever found out we were here, we'd be in big trouble. You see, the Democratic Party is…well, it's an institution. And institutions don't like change. They want everyone to fall in line behind Bob Russell. But Russell…"

"He's an idiot," Peter cut in, his voice filled with contempt. "Claims he cares about working people, but really he's in the pocket of big business and big bureaucracy. All of them are. Both parties, they're just the same."

"So if you were President, in addition to having the military occupy schools to prevent gun violence, you would…" Donna prompted.

"Abolish all federal agencies."

Donna tried to hide her incredulity. She had to look like she was taking him seriously. "All of them?"

"Every last one. Get rid of 'em all, see which ones we actually miss, and _think_ about reinstating those. Rebuild the whole damn system from the ground up, that's what I say. It's the only way to start cleaning up the train wreck the federal government has become."

"Except for the Department of Defense, I assume," Donna couldn't resist interjecting. "Since, you know, you'd need them to occupy the schools."

"The Department of Defense isn't a 'government agency,' lady. It _is_ the government."

"Right." Donna didn't bother trying to parse the logic of that statement. "And the schools would be run by…"

"Running the schools is the states' job, and the federal government knows it. The Department of Education has one mission, and that's to indoctrinate our kids. It's a scandal."

"That makes total sense," Donna responded earnestly.

He looked at the group of them wonderingly. "So you guys are actually with me on this, huh?"

"Absolutely. We think your ideas need to be discussed at the debate. The major candidates are going to be playing it safe, sticking to canned talking points. They need you to shake things up. The _country_ needs you to shake things up." Donna paused. "And just imagine, sir, if the people like what they hear from you, if they agree that something drastic needs to be done to fix our system…you never know what could happen. You could end up coming from behind and winning this thing. You could be our next President. Wouldn't that be something?"

"Yes, it would." A smile crossed Peter's face. "You know, when I first filed to run, it was just to make a point. Get on the ballot, make 'em print my ideas in the Voter's Pamphlet. You know. I wasn't expecting to win, to be honest with you. I didn't even think anyone would really notice me. But here you guys are."

"We definitely noticed you," Christine put in.

"Very true." The wheels in Peter's brain seemed to be turning. "Thank you all, for coming out here. I have to get to work, but you've given me a lot to think about."

"I'm glad," Donna said, though she felt kind of queasy as Peter got up to escort them to the door. She couldn't wait to get out of the house. But she smiled at him and added, "Be sure to get yourself in that debate."

He nodded. "I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen."

Donna waited until Peter had closed the door and was safely out of earshot before speaking.

"Anyone else feel like taking a shower?"

Greg laughed. "You were fantastic in there. You almost had _me_ convinced you were taking him seriously."

"You ever consider a career in acting?" Christine asked.

Donna wasn't amused. "We can't put him on that stage with Bob Russell – him or anyone like him. It'll be a national embarrassment to the Democratic Party."

"Too late," Greg shrugged. "If he wasn't taking his own candidacy seriously before, I have a feeling he is now. Did you see the way his eyes lit up when he thought we were really interested in his views?"

Donna didn't answer. She had seen that, and she'd found it more than a little unsettling.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You're trying to steer me toward middle-of-the-road positions that appeal to C-SPAN viewers."

"All six of them who will be watching the debate, yeah, God bless 'em."

Josh and Congressman Santos walked down the tarmac toward the small airplane that would be taking them to the Corn Growers' Association Expo. The two men were engrossed in an intense discussion about the upcoming brown and black debate. Ned and Ronna, as well as Lucy and Andrew, two other Santos campaign aides, followed behind them. Helen had stayed at the hotel because Peter had the beginnings of a cold; she and some of the other staffers would be taking the bus and meeting them at the Expo.

But what exactly the congressman was going to say to the corn growers was still very much up in the air. Matt hated the endorsement of the ethanol pledge that had been written into the speech. Helen Santos hated it even more. Hell, on substance, Josh hated it too, but it was what needed to be said. Yes, it was a pander, but the congressman was polling at 3% in Iowa. He couldn't afford to piss these people off, not if he wanted to have a chance at pulling any kind of upset.

He just didn't understand, Josh thought. He didn't understand that sometimes you had to pander. In a way, of course, Josh liked that about him. If he'd wanted a candidate who would have no qualms about telling voters whatever they wanted to hear in order to get votes, he would have accepted Hoynes's offer. Not Russell's; that had been a non-starter for Josh. The guy was a lightweight, and a malicious lightweight at that. Russell might not realize it, but his dull-as-a-block-of-wood persona was actually his best friend; it masked the cold, selfish ambition, the lack of any observable scruples, that Josh had witnessed firsthand more than once.

He and Toby had pieced together pretty easily that Russell and his wife had been responsible for leaking the information about Ellie Bartlet's research lab to the press a few years ago, in order to benefit Mrs. Russell's own career. And even that had been nothing compared to Russell's unforgivable press conference following President Bartlet's MS episode; Josh still felt his blood boil when he thought about that. The Vice President was either so clueless as to be unaware of the implications for everything from the stock market to international relations of calling the President's mental functioning into question, or he just didn't care as long as he got to look like the acting President, even if it was only for a few hours. Josh was pretty sure it was the latter; he didn't care about anything other than his own ambitions. If he'd had any doubts about his decision to turn down Russell's offer, they'd been erased on that day, that miserable day that had begun with the news that the President couldn't walk and ended with Donna casually quitting her job. To go work for Russell. After having just seen what he'd done to the President. Josh gritted his teeth and did his best to cut off that line of thought before he got too upset.

Hoynes was better than Russell, and despite the rocky relationship they'd had ever since Josh had quit his campaign, he still had a lot of affection for his old boss. John Hoynes had his flaws, of course, but history was filled with evidence that men could be philanderers and still be good or even great leaders. And sex wasn't what it used to be, as he'd told Will. Sex scandals were at least sometimes survivable these days.

But Hoynes hadn't just cheated on his wife; he'd also divulged classified information to his mistress. Josh didn't relish the thought of having to spend an entire presidential campaign trying to explain _that_ away. The opposition attack ads would write themselves. And Josh also had a strong suspicion that Helen Baldwin hadn't been Hoynes's only indiscretion. He was almost certain there were other women, maybe many of them, whom the public didn't know about yet. Another shoe of that nature dropping could finish Hoynes off, and if it dropped after he'd won the nomination, it could hand the White House to the Republicans.

And beyond that, when it came right down to it, Hoynes was a consummate politician. He would choose political expedience over principle almost every time. That wasn't what Josh wanted in a president, and in the end he'd concluded that he couldn't bring himself to settle for a candidate who was just "better than Russell." The willingness to speak the truth even at the risk of losing votes had been what had first drawn Josh to Jed Bartlet. And it had been what had drawn him to Matt Santos.

Josh's all-too-frequent arguments with Congressman Santos never failed to give him headaches, but he was keenly aware that he'd rather be trying to talk his candidate down from principled but politically losing positions, than be practically begging his candidate to show he _had_ any principles. And he'd meant what he'd told Joey Lucas; the last thing he wanted the congressman to be was pliable. Part of being President was having countless numbers of smart, persuasive people constantly trying to push you in all different directions; a president who didn't have the fortitude to tell those people "no" would be eaten alive. It was reassuring, if also at times maddening, that the congressman seemed to have no difficulty whatsoever saying "no."

But it wouldn't matter how good a president Santos would be if he got wiped out in Iowa and New Hampshire. It was Josh's job to make sure that didn't happen, even if it meant getting his candidate to compromise some of his lofty ideals about how campaigns should work. He found himself silently wondering if politics would always have to be that way, if candidates who were willing to unflinchingly tell voters what they really believed would be forever doomed to poll in the single digits with no hope of ever winning a national election. President Bartlet had told that dairy farmer in Nashua something he hadn't wanted to hear, and still won the presidency. On the other hand, he'd also endorsed ethanol subsidies against his better judgment, and he'd hidden his MS from the country in order to win.

"You really want me to talk about the economic problems in the minority community?" Matt's voice interrupted Josh's thoughts as they walked toward the airplane.

"Yeah, I really do." Black and brown debate. Josh brought his mind back to the issue at hand.

"Okay. How about the fact that minority kids are five times more likely to grow up poor and fatherless?"

"You know you can't go there."

"I'm serious. Kids who grow up fatherless are more likely to suffer emotional consequences, and twice as likely to engage in criminal activity." As they talked, Josh noticed the congressman carefully examining the wing of the small airplane. He seemed fascinated by the aircraft, probably a holdover from his days as a fighter pilot in the Marines, Josh figured.

"We need to be challenging Hoynes, not fringe candidates like Atkins."

"We reformed welfare to require women to work – that is, when they can find a job. But we haven't done half as much to force deadbeat dads pay for child support." Matt became more animated, his voice rising slightly.

"You know damn well less than a quarter of Latino kids grow up without their fathers. It's nearly half of African-American children."

"I don't care if it's three Bosnians, an Armenian, and a bus full of party clowns. It's a huge economic problem, Josh."

"It's going to look like you're lecturing African-Americans."

"Oh, so if I'm President I can only use the bully pulpit to talk to Latinos? What – does my State of the Union only run on Telemundo, too?"

"No. Tell me right now: what's going to help everyone, broadly? Make a difference across all the races?"

The congressman turned to look at him. "Values issues are important, too, Josh. And supporting ethanol is a mistake; I want to see that speech."

Matt turned and climbed aboard the plane. Josh found himself for the first time really looking at the aircraft. He swallowed, suddenly feeling his heart rate increase.

"Small plane," he commented nervously to Ned.

"Don't like small planes?"

"Buddy Holly small. Big Bopper small."

"Jiles Perry Richardson – Bopper's real name. Ritchie Valens, too. All went down right here in Iowa," Ned informed him in a shockingly casual tone before hopping up the steps onto the airplane.

After taking a moment to steel himself, Josh also climbed onboard the plane and took a seat.

"Where's the congressman?" he asked Ronna, who was sitting across from him.

"Up front."

"Up front?"

She grinned. "Well, he can't exactly fly it from back here."

Somehow, Josh had missed the fact that Matt was going to be flying the plane. He didn't know whether that piece of information made him more nervous or less.

"Everybody set?" Matt called from the cockpit, receiving a thumbs-up from Ronna.

"You might want to buckle up, Josh. Don't think I'll ever get tired of doing barrel rolls." Matt winked teasingly at him before turning back to the controls.

_Definitely more nervous_, Josh decided, his face turning several shades whiter as the plane began to taxi down the tarmac.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Great job on the Carolina trip – keep those boulders rolling," Vice President Russell praised Donna as they walked down the hall toward the stage at the Corn Growers' event. Hoynes had spoken that morning, and now it was the Vice President's turn to make his case to the corn growers. Matt Santos would be speaking later in the afternoon, and then Arnold Vinick would be the last candidate to speak.

"Thank you, sir." Donna smiled. She _had_ done well on that trip, if she did say so herself. Half a million dollars – she was still trying to get her head around the fact that she now had enough power and influence to get big party donors to write big checks for her candidate. It was dizzying to think how far she'd come in such a short time. She was no longer Josh Lyman's personal servant, that was for sure.

Josh. She felt herself tense slightly at that name. She'd thought she'd been having auditory hallucinations due to fatigue the previous night when she'd gotten on the elevator and heard a voice that sounded exactly like his yelling to hold the door. But no – it really had been him. And then they'd gotten off on the same floor, and walked down the same hall, and then discovered that their rooms were right across the hall from each other. It was like a cruel joke. She'd quit her job to get him out of her system, or at least that had been part of the reason. But now he was on the campaign trail, too. He'd been there in New Hampshire. He was here in Iowa – a few steps away from her hotel room, to be exact. How was she supposed to forget about him if he was there every time she turned around?

Not that there weren't a few advantages. She couldn't deny it: she was loving throwing her newfound professional status in Josh's face. In a matter of weeks, she had gone from being his assistant, answering his phones and tracking down his luggage, to essentially holding down a more prestigious position than her former boss. She was a high-level deputy on the presidential campaign of the Vice President of the United States. Josh was campaign manager to a nearly unknown congressman whose single-digit campaign would be a memory after New Hampshire.

In the back of her mind, of course, she knew that situation was Josh's choice. She knew he'd turned down an offer to run Russell's campaign. She knew Hoynes had also offered him campaign manager, and Josh had turned him down, too. But that didn't change the facts, did it? She was a more powerful political operative than Josh Lyman. That statement felt so good to say to herself that she didn't care how many asterisks belonged after it.

_Your whole campaign is like some Dr. Seuss nightmare. One fish, two fish, dead fish, 'we fought the good fight' fish._ She smiled inwardly as she remembered the stung, befuddled look on his face during their little chat back in New Hampshire. She'd only been pointing out the obvious. The Santos campaign had already proven itself to be a joke, what with the Mayflower quote, and Doug Westin publicly humiliating the congressman, and Matt Santos's insane determination to talk about education in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, the campaign of the Vice President was cruising along nicely. It had been kind of fun to rub it in to Josh that she was on the winning team and he wasn't.

In the old days, she knew she would have been trying to support and encourage Josh as he endured the stresses of the struggling campaign, not going out of her way to twist the knife. Her comments hadn't exactly been nice, she supposed. She knew all too well what it must have taken for Josh to leave President Bartlet, and not to work for the top-tier candidates who had courted him, but to run the campaign of a long-shot candidate he'd recruited. Donna had to admit that Matt Santos seemed smart and idealistic, the kind of person she might want as President, if only he had a chance to win. He was certainly a far cry from the lunatics she'd spent the morning talking to. Josh's efforts on his behalf probably deserved better than the sneering derision she'd thrown at him. But too bad. Josh Lyman's feelings were no longer her responsibility. She'd moved on from him, and she was intent on proving it every time she ran into him, if necessary.

And no, she wasn't completely oblivious to the fact that if she'd really moved on, she wouldn't be spending this much time thinking about Josh, and she wouldn't care whether he had the hotel room across from hers. She wouldn't have spent so much time staring through the peephole of her door whenever she thought Josh might be coming or going. She wouldn't have felt that completely irrational stab of pain in her heart when she'd watched him, after a try or two, master the key card and let himself into his room. _See?_ _He doesn't need you anymore, _she hadn't been able to stop herself from thinking miserably, before reminding herself that it was good that Josh didn't need her, because she certainly didn't need him anymore.

And she also couldn't completely suppress an uncomfortable awareness that eight years ago, it was the Bartlet campaign that had been unceremoniously written off by all the best-respected political experts. But the Santos campaign was much more of a long shot than Bartlet ever had been, wasn't it? And as for Josh…well, the more she acted like he was a non-factor in her life, the harder she tried to convince _him_ that she was over him, the sooner it would be true. Fake it till you make it, right?

"Please welcome the Vice President of the United States, Bob Russell!" Donna smiled and applauded as she watched Bob Russell take the stage, the speech containing the ethanol pledge loaded into the teleprompter.

She noticed Will standing next to her, and took the opportunity to make her case about their debate strategy. "We can't give these fringe candidates a megaphone; they're lunatics. It'll be a circus without the jugglers."

Will barely seemed to hear her, his attention focused solely on the Vice President's speech.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Don't you think the voters deserve honesty from their elected officials?" Matt demanded from the cockpit.

"No. I mean, yes, but…" Josh sighed in frustration. His eyes darted to Ned and Ronna. They rarely weighed in during these heated discussions between Josh and the congressman, but he could always tell they were listening with intense fascination. He supposed it was quite a political education for them. "Voters may say they want honesty, congressman, but believe me, they don't reward it. You go up there and tell the Iowa corn growers you're against ethanol subsidies, and they will organize. They'll get all their people out to the caucuses and make sure you are completely shut out. It'll be political suicide."

"As opposed to what?" Matt glanced back briefly to look at him. "I'm not going to win the Iowa caucus, Josh. It wouldn't matter if I got up on that stage and took a shower in ethanol; I'd still get my ass handed to me. So what is it, exactly, that I'm selling my soul for, anyway?"

"You're not selling your soul. It's just pragmatism, congressman. And we've been over this: you don't need to win the Iowa caucus. What you do need to do is beat expectations. You need to finish well enough to get people's attention, so that all of a sudden the media and the electorate will sit up and say, 'hey, wait a minute, who's this Matt Santos guy?'"

"'Who's this Matt Santos guy?' That's what we're pinning our hopes on?"

"…Then we go back to New Hampshire with some momentum, hopefully enough to put the Mayflower quote behind us, and pull off a strong third place there. Then all of a sudden it's a three-person race, and we'll be going into Arizona, New Mexico, and South Carolina. Hoynes will take South Carolina, but with the Latino population in Arizona and New Mexico-"

Josh's voice broke off as he suddenly felt the plane lurch. There seemed to be a shaking coming from the engines that hadn't been there before.

"Everything okay?" A knot started forming in Josh's stomach. It had to be the weather; they were flying through a nasty rainstorm. It didn't feel like usual airline turbulence, but then, he was used to flying on commercial jets and Air Force One.

"Something's wrong."

Two words you definitely did not want to hear from someone flying an airplane. "What is it?"

Matt didn't answer. He turned on his radio, and Josh listened as he tried to contact the nearest air traffic control station; the only response was silence.

All of a sudden, the shaking from the engines stopped, and there was an eerie quiet. A sickening feeling of horror came over Josh as he realized that the engines had stopped running altogether. The next second, the plane was losing altitude. Ronna and Lucy both let out screams. Josh sat frozen, too stunned and frightened to move. Things seemed to be happening in slow motion. He looked out the window at a solid sheet of gray; they were descending through clouds. A few seconds later, they broke out of the cloud bank, and Josh saw they were over a hilly and forested area. Damnit. It was Iowa, for chrissakes, one of the flattest states in the country, and they had to be over hills when this happened? As little as Josh knew about flying, he was pretty sure their best shot for a safe emergency landing would be over clear, flat ground.

"Mayday. Mayday. Mayday," he heard Matt saying into the radio, although there was no reason to think anyone could hear him. "…Engines have failed. We're going down over forested hills. There is cloud cover and rain. Attempting to land in a small clearing ahead. Six souls on board."

_Six souls_. Josh knew that was standard airline lingo, but it made his blood run cold. Who had come up with that, anyway? Souls. As if the bodies were already as good as dead.

All sorts of thoughts started racing through Josh's mind in quick succession. His mom – how would she take this? She'd already lost one child. It wasn't fair that she should have to lose another. Joanie. Josh didn't know if he believed in an afterlife or not, but if there was one, maybe he'd see Joanie and would finally be able to tell her how sorry he was about the popcorn, and about running out of the house that day. And Donna…his heart suddenly ached with regret for never having told her how he felt about her. He loved her desperately, and now she would never know. Not that it would have changed anything. She didn't return his feelings, that much was plainly obvious by now. She didn't love him. She didn't even like him anymore. If he'd told her how he felt, she probably would have gotten angry and accused him of trying to interfere with her relationship with Colin. But at least she would have known.

He glanced out the window again to see the ground speeding toward them. And then everything went black.

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks again to HarmonyLover and chai4anne for beta reading this story.**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Excellent speech, sir," Will told the Vice President as he stepped off the stage.

"Are you sure it was enough? You know, maybe I should have gone up there carrying a few ears of corn as props. Or, you know, composed a poem about the wonders of ethanol."

"Mock all you want, but your pandering will pay off at the caucuses, sir," Donna smiled.

"Aren't you a little new on this campaign to be calling your boss a panderer?"

Donna bit her lip. She didn't yet know the Vice President well enough to be sure whether or not he was joking. "Of course, sir, I'm sorry-"

"Kidding!" he reassured her, patting her shoulder. "And trust me, pandering is not a bad word on this campaign. I do actually want to win this thing."

"Hey guys!" one of their campaign aides ran up to them, a look of urgency on his face. "Did you hear?"

"Hear what?" Will asked.

The aide paused and took a deep breath. Then he began to talk, stammering slightly. "Matt Santos's airplane…he was flying himself to the Expo on a small charter plane…it never showed up at the airport."

Donna slowly started to feel dizzy as the full meaning of the words sunk in. "Never showed up? What does…"

"I'm sure it's nothing," Will quickly tried to reassure her. "They probably just got delayed. Or something."

"Doesn't sound like it," the aide shook his head. "The plane's not on radar, no radio contact – they're pretty sure it went down. They're sending rescue crews out now."

Donna's mouth went dry. It was all she could do to speak. "Who was on board?"

"Well, the congressman, obviously. I guess there were some campaign aides on board. I don't know…"

Without waiting for him to finish, Donna turned and ran into a lounge where she knew there was a television. It was already turned to CNN. The large red lettering at the bottom of the screen told the story in three words: _"Santos Plane Missing."_

Maybe Josh hadn't been on the plane, she thought desperately. Maybe he'd had to stay behind for some reason. He'd always been a little bit afraid of small planes; maybe he'd decided to take the campaign bus instead. She immediately dug out her cell phone and speed-dialed Josh's number. It was a phone call she'd started to make a thousand times since she'd quit, and always stopped herself, and now she was dialing without a second thought. But her heart sank when the call went straight to voicemail.

"This is Josh Lyman…" the recorded message began, and tears unexpectedly filled Donna's eyes at the sound of his voice. She hung up without leaving a message.

He hadn't been on the plane, she decided, staring at the television. He couldn't have been. He was a very prominent person. Screw all that nonsense she'd been telling herself about how she was a more powerful political operative than he was; he was ten times more important than her. A thousand times. If he'd been on the plane, they'd be reporting it.

As if on cue, the news anchor spoke. "If you are just joining us, a small aircraft that was being flown by United States Congressman and presidential candidate Matthew Santos is believed to have crashed somewhere outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Crews have been dispatched to try and locate the wreckage and, of course, rescue any survivors. Passengers on board include Congressman Santos and five members of his campaign staff – including, and we have just confirmed this, his campaign manager, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman-"

Donna let out a small gasp and sank into a chair as the news hit her. Josh had been on board a plane that had crashed. That stark reality was more than she knew how to process. He wasn't…he couldn't be…she wouldn't even let herself think the word. He was fine. Everything would be fine. People survived plane crashes all the time. Didn't they?

She hadn't realized there was anyone else in the room until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"The rescue effort's being coordinated by the Cedar Rapids Sheriff's Office," Will said quietly, his voice choked with emotion. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you wanted to wait there for updates."

She rubbed her eyes, managing to regain some of her composure. "No. I'm fine."

"It might be best-"

_Josh is fine,_ she told herself firmly. He had to be. The rescuers were going to find the plane any minute now, and report that everyone was alive and uninjured.

Half a semester of majoring in psychology had been enough to teach her that denial was the first stage of grief, but she didn't care. If that was what was going on with her, she was happy to embrace it. It was better than contemplating the unthinkable.

She glanced at her BlackBerry. "So the Vice President has an hour and a half before the photo op at the Coffee Bean Caucus. We should probably-"

"What?" Will looked at her in confusion.

"He should probably finish shaking hands here and then we should get on the road. We don't want to be late-"

"What on Earth are you talking about?"

"I'm doing my job."

"Donna…" Will stared at her, dumbfounded. "No one expects you to be working right now. I know how close you and Josh were. Are." he corrected himself quickly. She wondered why he'd made the correction. Because he wasn't sure whether she and Josh were still close? Or because he'd accidentally spoken about Josh in the past tense?

"What do you want me to do?" she demanded. "Go charging through the wilderness trying to find the damn plane myself?" She was vaguely aware that she was suppressing an impulse to do exactly that.

"Of course not-"

"You and Josh were friends, too. Are you going to go AWOL from the campaign over this?"

"We…" Will still seemed to be trying to make sense of her attitude. "It's not the same thing."

"Why not?"

"What do you mean, why not?" he stared blankly at her. "Josh and I – we got along pretty well, yeah – or at least we did until we ended up on opposing campaigns. And of course I'm worried about him, but it's not…I mean, there's nowhere near the history that you guys have." He sounded baffled that he would have to point out something so obvious.

Donna took a deep breath and summoned every bit of icy professionalism she could muster. "History is what it is. My job is here now."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Josh. Josh." Matt tried to revive his campaign manager, who was slumped in his seat, unresponsive. There was a large red bump forming where his forehead had slammed into the side of the plane on impact. A trickle of blood was running down his cheek. He could tell Josh was breathing, but every second he remained unconscious caused Matt to imagine increasingly dire possibilities about the severity of his injuries.

He felt a wave of relief when he heard a low groan coming from him.

"Josh," Matt said his name again, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"You have to support ethanol, congressman…" Josh sputtered, eyes half-open.

Despite himself, Matt couldn't help but smile.

"I think he's going to be okay," Ned commented, kneeling next to Ronna on the small floor of the aircraft.

Josh blinked several times, slowly becoming more alert. "What…" he glanced around. "What's going on?"

"The plane crashed. You hit your head," Matt explained gently.

"What?" Josh was quiet for a moment, the memories appearing to slowly return. "The plane…Oh my God…" His voice got clearer. He attempted to sit up straighter. "Are you…is everyone…who's hurt?"

"Don't worry about that now. Just relax."

That answer seemed to alarm Josh. "Who's hurt?" he demanded more loudly. Then a look of dread crossed his face. "Oh my God…is anyone…"

"No, no," Matt assured him quickly. "Andrew's leg is hurt – probably broken. Ned's back is hurt. And Lucy has some bruised ribs or something, I think." He paused for a moment and glanced at Ronna, who was lying down as best she could in the aisle of the small, mangled plane. She had tried to get up from her seat after the crash only to collapse onto the floor in pain, and Ned was in the process of helping to wrap her in one of the plane's emergency blankets. "Ronna's hurt. I don't know how badly, but…she's in a lot of pain."

"You're okay?" Josh asked.

"Not a scratch." Matt tried to keep a note of bitterness out of his voice. He didn't know what had happened. There had been some kind of massive engine failure, and clearly the distress calls he'd sent hadn't gone through. Something seemed very wrong; in all his years of flying, he'd never seen or heard of an airplane's systems failing so suddenly and catastrophically. It almost seemed like…he shook his head, cutting off that line of thinking. The bottom line was that it didn't matter how it had happened. He had been the one flying the plane. This was his responsibility. It had always been one of his worst nightmares, something like this happening. Countless thousands of hours of flight experience had made him into a very confident pilot, but in the back of his mind he'd always been aware that no amount of skill or experience could ever guarantee a safe flight. And now it had happened. Five people were injured, at least one possibly critically, because he hadn't been able to land the plane safely.

Josh's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Something went wrong with the plane."

"Yeah."

"The engine…the radio…they all failed?"

"I guess."

"Does that happen?"

"Apparently."

"What I'm saying is, do you think this was a normal mechanical failure, or-"

"Are you saying you think the plane was sabotaged?" Ned cut in, a note of alarm on his face.

Matt shook his head. "There's no one who would want to do that."

"You're a public figure now, congressman...a hundred times more so now that you're running for President," Josh told him. "There absolutely are crazy people who would do something like that."

"You really think there's someone out there so threatened by the Santos juggernaut that they'd tamper with an airplane to try and take me out? And five of my staff to boot?"

Josh's eyes narrowed. "Cast any votes in Congress that made anyone mad?"

"Every vote I cast makes someone mad, but this...?"

Josh let out a breath and changed the subject. "Anyway, look, we have to get out of here. Has anyone tried to call-"

"No cell phone reception," Ned reported.

Josh dug his BlackBerry out of his pocket, the "no service" icon confirming Ned's words. "Damnit," he muttered. "But they'll find us, right? I mean, how hard can it be?"

"It depends," Matt responded. "The plane has an emergency locator transmitter. Whether it's working or not is anyone's guess; nothing else seems to be. And in these conditions…" He gestured out the window. There was a low, thick cloud cover, and the rain was coming down in sheets. It was mixed with a few wet snowflakes, confirming that it really was as cold as it felt. They had landed in what appeared to be a small clearing in otherwise dense forest.

"So what you're saying is, we may be here awhile," Ned broke in, voicing the fear that was on all of their minds.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks again to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne…**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Before we begin, I'd just like to offer my prayers and concern to Congressman Santos and his family, as well as my gratitude to the brave men and women who are out there in this weather searching for the airplane right now. I have every hope that he and his fellow passengers will be found and rescued." Bob Russell stood in front of about half a dozen news cameras at the Coffee Bean Caucus, reading the statement Will had written for him on the bus ride over.

_His fellow passengers,_ Donna couldn't help but repeat bitterly in her head. They had names. Josh had a name.

She pushed the thought from her mind. The Vice President was only doing his job. There was nothing he could do to make the rescuers find the plane any faster. There was nothing any of them could do.

"And as a tribute to Congressman Santos, and as a token of the prayers of everyone on my campaign, I'd like to place a coffee bean into his jar." The Vice President walked up to the line of jars and dropped a bean into the one labeled "Matt Santos."

_Counting the bean from that volunteer he sends out to the coffee shop every morning, that will actually be two beans in his jar today._ Donna felt like punching the Vice President all over again as she remembered his smug comment on the bus when Will had come up with the idea of putting a bean into the congressman's jar, an informal "vote" for him in the Coffee Bean Caucus.

"Now let me try a slice of that apple pie. And make it à la mode," the Vice President beamed, turning toward the woman at the counter. Donna found herself cringing. Surely the abrupt transition must have made the insincerity of his words about the missing plane evident to everyone listening; it certainly had to her. But then, she supposed she wasn't exactly an impartial observer.

"Ms. Moss?" a young campaign aide walked up to her, holding a cell phone. Although Donna always asked the younger staff to call her by her first name, she had to admit there was a part of her that enjoyed it when they nonetheless called her 'Ms. Moss'. She liked that some people considered her important enough to be addressed in such a way. But now, somehow it just felt stilted and artificial.

"Call me Donna."

"There's a phone call for you. CJ Cregg from the White House." Donna nodded and took the call.

The phone call with CJ felt almost as surreal as her earlier conversation with Will had. She heard the tears in CJ's voice as her friend offered words of concern, assured Donna that the White House was carefully monitoring the situation, and asked if she wanted to come back to DC and wait for news with them at the White House. She'd be among friends, and she'd be the first to hear any updates. Donna politely declined the offer. She'd already decided not to take a break from the campaign, and she was standing by that decision.

It was only after Donna had hung up the phone that she realized what the other reason she'd turned down the offer to go to DC was. She couldn't bear the thought of leaving the state. If…when…Josh was found, she wanted to be close by.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Any luck?" Josh called to Matt, who was in the cockpit trying to see if any of the equipment was salvageable. They'd found some gauze and a bandage in the plane's first aid kit, which now covered the bump on Josh's head. It still hurt like hell, but at least he no longer had blood running into his face.

"No. The equipment's fried. There's a handheld GPS in one of the safety kits that doesn't look damaged, though." Matt turned around and walked up to them, carrying the GPS. His gaze fell to Ronna. "How's she doing?"

Josh and Ned were now both tending to Ronna, who was still on the small floor. "There are some nasty-looking bruises forming where the seatbelt was," Josh reported. "She must have gotten thrown around in her seat quite a bit during the crash."

Matt sat in one of the seats next to them. Ronna's face was white as a sheet, and she seemed to be having some difficulty breathing.

Matt watched her for a moment, worry etched on his features, and then put a hand on Josh's shoulder. "Can I talk to you alone?" he asked quietly.

Josh nodded and they walked up to the door of the plane. It had sustained some damage in the crash, but a strong push was enough to pry it open. They walked a few feet outside into the heavy rain.

"What is it?" Josh asked, running a hand through his hair to wring out some of the rain water that was quickly beginning to soak it.

Matt sighed. "Look, I'm not a doctor, but when I was in the Marines there was an accident during a training exercise, and one of the guys had injuries that looked a lot like hers. He had internal bleeding and nearly died."

Josh paled. "You think Ronna-"

"I think she needs to get to a hospital."

Josh's brow furrowed worriedly. "How long do you think it'll take them to find us?"

"No telling. In these weather conditions…" Matt paused. "We can't be that far from a town, or at least a road or something." He turned on the handheld GPS and waited for a few minutes for it to boot up and search for a signal. After a moment, he nodded.

"It says the GPS signal is weak, but if it has our location right, we're somewhere near the Burr Oak Wildlife Area County Preserve. It looks like there's a road a mile or so to the west. I don't know how well-trafficked it would be, especially in the dead of winter, but…" Matt studied it for a moment. "I could hike out to the road, and follow it north, and it looks like it turns into County Highway F12. Might be more traffic there, or at least someone who's willing to stop and help. And maybe I'll eventually be able to get a cell phone signal."

"Getting to the road might be tough," Josh commented, leaning in to study the GPS screen. The sketchy map didn't tell them much about the terrain, but at the moment they were surrounded by dense forest in all directions.

"It's only a mile. There's a compass in the emergency kit. I'll manage."

"Yeah." Josh nodded. He supposed they didn't have a choice. "I'm coming with you."

Matt shook his head. "You were unconscious a few minutes ago, Josh."

"I'm fine now," he insisted, doing his best to ignore the pain radiating from his forehead.

"You don't know that. I'm sure you have a concussion – God knows how bad. You could lose consciousness again. The last thing you need to be doing is traipsing through the forest in the middle of a storm. You should wait here with Ronna and the others. A crashed plane isn't much shelter, but it's better than nothing."

"If you think I'm letting you go wandering out in the wilderness by yourself…"

"Wilderness? This is Iowa we're talking about."

"A wildlife preserve. Lions. Bears."

"I really don't think they have lions in Iowa."

"You know what I mean."

"I used to be an active-duty Marine. I saw combat in the Gulf War. I think I can handle a hike through the woods."

"So can I."

"I'm serious, Josh."

"I am, too." Josh met his eyes stubbornly.

"Damnit, Josh, I'm still your boss, and I am ordering you to stay with the plane."

"Then I guess you'll have to fire me," he shot back without missing a beat.

"Josh…" Matt sighed. "I appreciate your concern, but I'll be fine. Really."

"Yeah, until you get lost, or the battery gives out on the GPS – or who knows, maybe the signal is screwed up and we're not even where we think we are – or you fall and hurt yourself, and none of us have any idea where the hell you are, and the temperature drops to 20 degrees or so, and now you're going into hypothermia, and I refuse to have one more death on my conscience."

Whatever retort Matt had ready died on his lips. "What?"

"Nothing. Nothing." Josh rubbed his throbbing head. He hadn't exactly meant to say that last part.

Matt was quiet for a moment, then relented. "Okay."

They went back into the plane and told the others what they were doing. Matt grabbed a few of the compact foil emergency blankets, just in case he and Josh needed them, careful to leave a sufficient supply of blankets for Ronna and the others.

There were also several books of matches in the emergency kit. He took a book of them, leaving the rest. "If the weather clears, you might want to go outside and try to make a fire," he suggested to Ned before stepping back out of the airplane.

A few minutes later, he and Josh were on their way, pushing their way through the moderately dense woods in what they hoped was the direction of the road.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Leaning back in her seat on the campaign bus, Donna dialed her cell phone.

"This is Josh Lyman…" She let Josh's voicemail greeting play almost to the end, hanging up just before the beep so she wouldn't leave a message. It had to be at least the tenth time she'd called his number since the crash. When she dialed, the phone went straight to voicemail without ringing, meaning his phone was either turned off, out of battery, or out of range, and further, that there wouldn't be a long list of missed calls on his phone to provide evidence of her neurotic dialing. She did her best to keep an impassive expression on her face as she held the phone to her ear, so that everyone would think she was on an important campaign call.

Her heart ached every time she listened to the familiar inflections of Josh's voice, which came through even in his businesslike voicemail greeting. It was getting harder to ignore her darkest fear. What if she never heard that voice again?

Will walked over and sat next to her. They had finished the Coffee Bean Caucus photo op and were now headed to a town hall in Iowa City.

"So what happened with you and Josh?" he asked quietly.

She let out a breath, pushing her emotion aside. "Nothing happened."

"Come on, Donna. You guys were inseparable, and now-"

"What? I was supposed to spend the rest of my life being his handmaiden?"

"You were a senior assistant in the West Wing. Not exactly a handmaiden."

"Glorified handmaidenry," she insisted stubbornly.

"It's just that when I first came to work for Bartlet, I heard rumors about an office betting pool on whether you guys would be married within six months of the end of the administration. And now-"

"_What_?" Donna demanded, whipping around to face him. "If you're even about to tell me you put money on that, I swear to God I will slap you so hard…"

"No, no," Will put up his hands in a combination of protest and self-defense. "I just said I heard rumors. They probably weren't even true."

She let out a shaky breath, composing herself. "He was keeping me down, that's all. He was refusing let me advance in my career. That's why I left." She was struck by a sense that she was justifying her actions to herself at least as much as she was to Will.

"What do you mean? Did he turn you down for a promotion?"

"Not…exactly." She began to feel slightly uncomfortable. No, Josh hadn't turned her down for a promotion. She hadn't applied for a promotion, or even expressed a serious interest in any particular position in the administration. Her only real conversation with him about wanting to advance had been when she'd complained about being kept off the Brussels trip. Looking back, she had to acknowledge that whining about not being able to go on a glamorous international trip probably wasn't the most productive context in which to bring up her desire for career advancement. And he _had_ sent her to Gaza in response to that conversation. And after what had happened in Gaza, and Leo's heart attack, and all the other chaos of the past six months or so, it would probably be understandable if Josh had forgotten all about that discussion.

But she shouldn't have had to ask. He should have known. He should have seen how her skills were being wasted in her current position and found something else for her, something better and more fulfilling. But he hadn't done that. He'd cared more about having an assistant who knew to make sure his hamburgers were burnt like hockey pucks than he had about her or her future. That was what CJ had told her, and she was one of the smartest people Donna knew. She also knew Josh; she'd known him even longer than Donna had. She wouldn't have made those accusations unless they were true.

She closed her eyes, trying to focus on being mad at Josh. That was her best defense, reminding herself of what an oblivious, obnoxious jackass he was. An _alive_, oblivious, obnoxious jackass.

"Well, anyway…" Will decided not to pursue the topic. "Look, try not to worry too much. Santos was a fighter pilot in the Marines. If anyone could've landed that plane safely, I'm sure it'd be him."

"I know." Donna kept her voice flat.

"And hey. Whatever Josh did, I'm sure he didn't mean it. God knows he can be clueless sometimes, but he really is crazy about you."

She snorted. "Yeah, right. You mean he was crazy about my typing ability."

"No," Will looked surprised. "Believe me, Donna, a guy doesn't drop everything and fly to the other side of the world for a woman because he likes her typing."

"Leo sent him. I guess he figured it'd be good P.R. You know, show everyone how much the White House cares, even about pathetic little worker bees like myself."

Will just stared at her for a moment. "You're not that dense, Donna. You know that's not why he went."

She glanced at him momentarily and then quickly turned and stared straight ahead again, biting her lip and suddenly fighting tears.

Will sighed, deciding to drop the subject. He got up to leave, patting her shoulder. "Anyway, take care of yourself, okay? And just let me know if you decide you need to take time off." She watched as he went over to the Vice President's seat, sitting down next to him to talk about something.

Her eyes shifted to a portable television that had been set up near the front of the bus. She'd been trying and failing to ignore the flickering screen ever since she'd gotten on the bus. It was tuned to CNN, which was still on wall-to-wall coverage of the missing plane. There was nothing new to report, and lots of time to fill, which made the reporters' chatter turn to all sorts of tangents.

_"We certainly don't want to get ahead of ourselves and assume anything that may not be the case, but if the worst does come to pass, it will certainly be a huge blow to the House of Representatives, which is still reeling from the deaths of Congressmen Korb and DeSantos in the terrorist attack in Gaza last spring…"_

_"…this is second potential brush with death for Josh Lyman in his public life. Viewers may remember that he was critically wounded in May of 2000 when gunmen opened fire on President Bartlet and his entourage after a town hall in Rosslyn, Virginia…"_

_Shut up!_ Donna felt like screaming at the television. _Why are you talking about those things? They don't have anything to do with this._

It should be the discussion of Gaza that upset her the most, she supposed. That had happened less than a year ago, and people had died. When she'd come back to work after the attack, one of the most unexpectedly difficult aspects had been the televisions in virtually every room of the West Wing, all set to cable news, with pundits constantly analyzing and dissecting the attack and President Bartlet's response to it. She'd sometimes fantasized about investing in earplugs so she wouldn't have to listen to the chatter – and as an added bonus, she'd thought to herself at the time, also not have to hear Josh's voice when he bellowed for her.

But now she realized could endure the Gaza coverage with little more than a cringe. The talk of Rosslyn was what was agonizing to her. A few minutes ago, the network had filled some airtime with clips of the news coverage from after the shooting, showing images of the panicked crowd and news anchors reporting on Josh's condition. Memories of those terrifying hours, days, and weeks after the shooting came flooding back to Donna like they'd happened yesterday.

The memories: that was probably one reason why the talk of Rosslyn bothered her more than talk of Gaza, she reasoned. She remembered every moment of that long vigil in the hospital, waiting in anguish for word on whether Josh's surgery had been successful. By contrast, she actually remembered very little about Gaza. She had no memory of the attack. Her memories of the hospital were hazy, probably mostly due to the high levels of painkillers they'd had her on. She remembered being horrified when she'd heard about the deaths of the congressmen and Admiral Fitzwallace, and relieved when she'd heard Andi hadn't been hurt. She remembered Josh and Colin being there, and some weird competitive vibe between the two of them. She thought she remembered Josh looking at her with such an expression of love and worry on his face that it had almost made her think maybe nearly being blown up hadn't been an entirely bad thing, but that memory had to be drug-induced. Didn't it?

_He was a jerk. He kept you down. He certainly never loved you_. She repeated those words to herself, like a mantra. Once the passengers from the plane were rescued, and she knew Josh was safe – she refused to entertain any other possibility – nothing would have changed. She would still need to get on with her life, without him. Josh Lyman had defined her for far too long already.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks again to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne…**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Josh found himself breathing hard as he and Matt trudged through the forest. At the moment, they were walking near the edge of a steep, narrow ravine as they made their way in what they hoped was the direction of the road. Being so close to the steep slope was making him a little nervous, but it was the only path they'd found where the brush and undergrowth weren't too thick for them to push through. They'd been hiking for about half an hour. Josh wasn't sure exactly how far they'd gotten; the GPS continued to warn that its signal was weak, so its readings weren't likely to be all that accurate. The cold rain/snow mix had turned to all snow, and it was quickly covering the forest in a blanket of white and making every surface slippery. Josh allowed himself a glance around at the newly snow-covered trees. It would actually have been a breathtakingly beautiful scene, if he weren't too cold, tired, and frightened to enjoy it. His clothes were soaked from the earlier rainstorm, and now felt like ice against his body. His overcoat was wool, which enabled it to retain some warmth, but it was far too thin for conditions such as these. It was meant to keep him reasonably warm and dry for quick hops from the campaign bus to buildings, not for spending any length of time outdoors in a snowstorm.

As he walked, his mind began to wander to a topic that was rarely far from his consciousness: Donna. People must know the plane was missing by now. He knew it was pathetic and self-pitying, but he couldn't help it: he wondered how she was reacting to the news. In his fantasies, he imagined she was frantic, that despite her recent anger at him she was desperate to find something, anything she could do to aid in the rescue of the plane, even though of course there wasn't anything she could do. If he were in an accident, she wouldn't stop for red lights; that was what she'd said, right?

But that had been years ago. So much had changed since then. He didn't know exactly what she'd meant by that remark at the time, whether she'd just meant she cared for him and was grateful that he'd taken her back after she'd run off with Dr. Freeride, or if it was something more than that. But whatever it was, she'd made it clear that she didn't feel it anymore. He didn't blame her. After Gaza, he was amazed she'd ever even been able to stand to look at him again. It was certainly no wonder that any affection she might once have had for him, whether romantic in nature or otherwise, would have been extinguished after he'd nearly gotten her killed.

He'd been so stupid, so incredibly stupid, sending her there, to one of the most dangerous regions on the planet. She'd asked for career advancement, and he'd thought that would fit the bill: substantive policy experience that she could put on her résumé to help her qualify for higher-level positions once the administration was over. It had never occurred to him that she'd meant she wanted out of her current job before then. Well okay, it _had_ occurred to him once or twice, but the thought had been so unimaginable that he'd pushed it out of his mind whenever it surfaced. But in any case, he'd been completely blindsided by the way things had ended.

He knew she'd had a right to be annoyed with him over the canceled lunches, of course. But that didn't come close to explaining why she'd left the way she had, not bothering to give him two weeks' notice or even a formal letter of resignation. Of course he'd thought she was kidding when she'd matter-of-factly informed him at the end of the day that she wouldn't be back the next morning: who did that?

His efforts to rationalize her actions, to figure she must have gotten a job offer she couldn't refuse and which she had to start immediately, had been dashed when he'd heard through the grapevine a few days later that she'd had a job interview with the Vice President's office. An interview. She hadn't had a new job lined up yet. Her old one had apparently just gotten so miserable she couldn't stay at it another day. And every word she'd spoken to him since her departure had confirmed the message: he was nothing to her, nothing except an annoying former boss from a job she now despised.

People move on. That had been Leo's casual, offhand explanation when Josh had told him, fighting tears, that Donna had quit. It had barely seemed to occur to Leo that it would bother Josh all that much. And why should it have? People moved on from other people who had once mattered to them all the time. Just because Josh had never figured out how to do it didn't mean it wasn't normal.

He didn't leave people. Amy had told him once that Donna had said that about him, and he supposed it was true. Even when he had no choice but to leave them physically, he couldn't leave them emotionally. Nearly forty years after Joanie's death, he still thought about her almost every day. He still thought about his dad almost every day, too. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that leaving Hoynes for Bartlet had been the right decision, but he still had to suppress a pang of guilt every time he looked at the former Vice President. And then there was Amy. He'd definitely been physically attracted to her, and he'd respected her intelligence and enjoyed sparring with her on political strategy. But he was pretty sure he'd never loved her, and completely sure she'd never loved him. But he hadn't left her. He'd hung on, trying to salvage the relationship even when he knew there was nothing much left to salvage, until she'd finally done them both a favor and called it quits.

And Sam. Josh vividly remembered how stunned and confused he'd been when his best friend had told him he wasn't coming back to the White House after losing in the California 47th. Before Sam had accidentally gotten himself into that race, he'd given no indication whatsoever that he was unhappy with his White House position. But he'd said that being out of DC had given him some much-needed perspective, and he'd realized he needed a break from the whole scene. Josh had told him he understood, but he hadn't, not really. He'd missed Sam terribly over the past few years; the White House had never quite felt the same without him. Other than Donna, Sam had been the only person Josh had felt he could completely count on to be in his corner when things got tough. His friend's supportive phone calls after the Carrick debacle had been nice, but it wasn't the same as actually having him there. At least he'd had Donna then. Now he didn't have either one of them.

Maybe it was these confusing, painful thoughts running through his head and distracting him. Or maybe it was the weather, and the snow that was covering the ground and making it almost impossible to see where solid footing was, as opposed to loose soil and debris that would give way if stepped on. Or maybe it was his still-throbbing head. Most likely, it was a combination of all three. But whatever it was, he stepped in the wrong place and felt his foot slipping. The next moment, he was falling into the ravine, feeling a sharp, agonizing pain in his leg as it slammed against a rock on the way down.

"Josh!" Matt, who was walking a few steps ahead of him, turned around at the sound of the fall. He lunged forward to grab him, but instead lost his own footing and began to fall as well. Within seconds, they were both at the bottom of the ravine.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dazed, Josh tried to pick himself up from the forest floor, letting out an involuntary cry as fresh pain shot through his leg.

"Are you okay?" asked Matt, who had landed a few feet away from him.

There was no point in trying to put up a brave front. "I'm pretty sure my leg's broken."

Matt helped him into a sitting position, and Josh leaned back against the trunk of a tree that was growing along the side of the ravine, stretching his leg out in front of him. He realized that the cold of the snow actually felt good against it. He closed his eyes momentarily, feeling dizzy. Thankfully, he hadn't hit his head again, but the fall had still been disorienting.

Josh glanced over at the congressman. He had noticed that Matt had seemed to be favoring his left arm when he'd helped him up, and now saw that the congressman's right wrist was rapidly beginning to swell. "Your wrist."

"Hit it on something on the way down," Matt explained with a shrug. He sat down beside Josh. "Now what do we do?"

Josh fished the GPS out of his pocket. It appeared to be undamaged. He handed it to Matt. "You have to climb out of here and get to the road. I don't think it's that much farther."

"I don't want to leave you here by yourself."

"Well, I can't really hike with my leg."

Matt rolled his eyes. "I realize that. I mean I think I should stay here with you."

Josh sighed in exasperation. "What the hell good is it going to do anyone to have both of us sitting here and freezing?"

Matt paused and looked at Josh for a moment. As much as he hated the idea of leaving the injured man alone in the snow, he knew Josh was right. The best thing he could do for him was to get to the road and get help as quickly as possible.

"Yeah, you're right." He sighed and got to his feet, noting their location on the GPS. Then he took off his overcoat and handed it to Josh.

"You'll need that," Josh objected.

"You'll need it more. I'll be walking. I'll be fine."

"Congressman-"

"Come on, Josh. You won't even call me 'Matt' when we're stuck in the woods after a plane crash?"

"Not this argument again."

Matt sighed. "Okay. Look, just sit tight. I'll be back with help as soon as possible."

Matt began walking along the side of the ravine, trying to find a spot to climb out. But the forested wall was steep, and covered with wet, snow-coated leaves and debris, making it impossible to find footholds. He found a few spots that looked promising, where there was a tree root or other object he could grab onto, but with his injured wrist, those efforts failed.

He began walking along the ravine, hoping maybe he could simply follow it all the way to the road. But after about a hundred feet, he encountered a large tree and its root system which had come down, probably several years ago in a storm, blocking the path. New growth had formed along the sides and at the top of the tree. Matt tried to scale the blockage, but again he was unsuccessful.

After a few more failed attempts to climb out of the ravine, Matt returned to Josh. "I think we're stuck here," he reported with a sigh. "If I hadn't hurt my wrist, I'd probably be able to scramble out, but as it is…"

Josh groaned, burying his head in his hands. "I'm so sorry, congressman. This is all my fault. I got distracted. I slipped. You were probably right; I probably never should have come."

Matt shook his head, sitting down next to Josh. "If I hadn't crashed the damn plane, none of us would be in this mess in the first place."

"It wasn't your fault," Josh insisted. "The engine failed. And you landed the plane, under awful conditions. Don't think as soon as we're rescued I'm not going to be telling the media all about how you're a hero who saved all our lives."

A tight smile formed on Matt's face. "You must be pretty confident about our chances of being rescued if you're already figuring out how to spin this to the press."

"Just…you know, trying to think positive," Josh explained, his voice trailing off slightly as he ran a hand through his wet hair, shaking off some of the snowflakes. "Besides, they'll find us. How hard can it be? I mean, there are only so many places the plane could have crashed, right?"

Matt gazed up at the sky. The low clouds and thickening snow would certainly complicate the search effort. "I hope you're right."


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks as always to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne...**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Oh yes, Gretchen. I am a firm believer in ethanol as a clean, renewable energy source, and as I pledged to the people of Iowa and to the United States earlier today at the Corn Growers' Expo, when I'm President, my administration will strongly support further investments in ethanol production." Vice President Russell smiled at the middle-aged woman at the town hall who had just asked him what had to have been at least the fifteenth quesion that day about ethanol subsidies.

He sounded sincere. Donna might even have allowed herself to think he _was_ sincere, except that on the bus on the way to the town hall, he'd commented to her that he wasn't a fan of ethanol and had taken the pledge solely for political purposes. He'd seemed to think that would make her think more highly of him, but it had actually done the opposite. Donna didn't think ethanol made much environmental or economic sense, but she could respect someone who had an honest difference of opinion. But it was hard to find a reason to respect blatant pandering.

Except that he was doing what he had to do to win the election, she reminded herself. Will would have flipped out if the Vice President had shown any reluctance to take the pledge. And Donna would have, too. That was her job, to help him win at all costs. She was no longer the naïve, dewy-eyed idealist who'd hopped in her rickety old car to drive from Wisconsin to New Hampshire, cooking up a crazy, half-baked plan to land a job working – most likely, she knew, for no pay – for a minor presidential candidate who had inspired her. That girl had stayed an assistant, unable to move up the career ladder. Now she'd become a hard-edged political operative, and she was proud of it. Her job was to make Bob Russell succeed, because if he succeeded, she succeeded too. That was how Washington worked. If you didn't look out for yourself and put your own interests first, you could be assured that no one else was going to do it for you. It was high time she finally started playing the game. In fact, it was a damn good thing she'd started when she did; otherwise, she could almost guarantee she'd be a part of the exercise in futility that was the Matt Santos campaign. She'd probably have been on that plane and would have fallen out of the sky a few hours ago. And been able to be with Josh, and hold his hand in what might have been the last moments of their lives…

_Stop!_ She screamed at herself. How did every train of thought manage to come back to Josh, anyway? Even from a plane wreck in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa, he was able to make her second-guess her new set of priorities. Damn him. If she'd been on that plane and had died, she'd be an also-dead, she reminded herself firmly. "Also dead: Diane Moss." She tried to summon indignation at that thought, and ignore her strong sentiment that if Josh were among the dead, it wouldn't matter in the least what some fact-checking challenged reporter wrote about her.

Somehow these thoughts led to a memory flashing, uninvited, through her mind.

"_There was nothing you could have done."_

"_It's stupid. I don't even know why…"_

"_It's not stupid. You met them. They got to you."_

"_I need to learn how to not be so…how to keep things at arm's length."_

"_I hope not."_

She'd never forgotten that night, when she'd broken down after learning that Donovan had committed suicide after being taken off the pardon list. At the time, she'd found Josh's words incredibly touching. She'd actually thought it was one of the sweetest things he'd ever said to her – partly, she had to admit, because he'd followed it by slipping an arm around her shoulders as they'd walked to the motorcade.

Later, after she'd quit her job, she'd found herself putting a new slant on that moment. _Of course he hoped you'd stay like that. Stay as someone who would crumble when faced with the tough decisions people with power in DC have to make. Someone who would therefore decide she was perfectly happy to keep answering phones for the rest of her life._

Now, thinking about it, she just felt sad. The joke was on Josh; she _had_ learned how to keep things at arm's length. She'd gotten very good at it; she'd certainly proven that today. Josh had been in a plane crash, and she was going on like nothing had happened. She should be pleased with herself, she supposed, but she realized she wasn't. She didn't think that was something she _wanted_ to be good at. And all of a sudden, she wasn't sure she liked the person she was turning into.

And oddly enough, at the moment, Arnold Vinick was triggering some second-guessing on Donna's part as well. From her position backstage, she could see a television screen tuned to CNN. Much to the Vice President's chagrin, the network wasn't carrying the town hall live. They were still on continuous coverage of the Santos plane, which had now been missing for nearly five hours. Donna had been trying hard to block out the doctors who were being put on the air to give their best guesses as to how long the plane's occupants could remain out in the elements before life-threatening hypothermia set in – that was, of course, assuming they'd survived the initial crash. Hearing that speculation was a too-stark reminder that the _best_ thing she could hope for was that Josh was in some field in Iowa in the middle of a snowstorm, possibly injured, certainly terrified, his body temperature dropping by the minute.

But something else on the screen had caught her eye. A crawler at the bottom of the screen noted what would under normal circumstances have been the political story of the day: Senator Vinick had rocked the Corn Growers' Expo by going onstage and announcing his opposition to ethanol subsidies.

_You have a year to talk me out of voting for him,_ Donna remembered herself saying about Vinick. She hadn't been kidding. She disagreed with the man on a lot of issues, but not as drastically as she disagreed with most other Republicans; Vinick was indeed a moderate. And he was smart, and he seemed to have integrity. He'd resisted the temptation to use Zoey Bartlet's birthday party to take a cheap shot at the President, and now he'd endangered his own chances in Iowa in order to say what he really thought about ethanol. She glanced back at the Vice President, who had wrapped up the town hall and was now working the rope line. The smile on his face was phony; she knew that as soon as they got on the bus, he'd gripe about all the questions that had annoyed him. She found herself wondering, and not for the first time, what the man she was working for actually believed in – or if he believed in anything at all, other than accumulating power for himself.

Not that she wanted Vinick to win. She didn't want any Republican to win. If Congress actually gave President Vinick the massive tax cuts and balanced budget he was campaigning on, it would unavoidably mean draconian cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and countless other social programs. But between Vinick and Russell? Could Russell really be counted on to take any political risks to fight for the programs and policies that mattered most to Democrats? Donna doubted it. And when it came to intellect, Vinick blew Russell out of the water, that much was undeniable.

But there was no way that Vinick was going to win the Republican nomination. Whatever else Donna could say about Josh, he had a first-class political mind, and he'd explained it to her after Vinick had announced his candidacy: Vinick was too moderate. He wouldn't be able to run away from his long anti-ethanol record, and he'd be wiped out in Iowa. More significantly, his pro-choice position would be a deal-breaker for Republican primary voters. Josh's reasoning had made perfect sense. The only thing that made Donna nervous was that when he'd said it, he'd had that tone of voice that indicated he was trying to convince himself of something he didn't quite believe.

"Ugh. I will be so glad when this damn caucus is over and I can stop talking to hick farmers about corn," the Vice President complained, flanked by Donna and Will as he strode toward the waiting bus after finishing with the rope line.

"Did you hear Arnold Vinick spoke out against ethanol at the Expo?" Donna asked.

Russell stopped walking for a moment. "He did?" Donna nodded, and Russell shook his head. "No kidding. Wow. What an idiot."

"You don't think it's bold and courageous?" Donna eyed him challengingly.

The Vice President laughed. "I don't care what kind of spin you want to put on it, it's political suicide. Not that I'm complaining. If Vinick self-destructs in the primary, it means we don't have to run against him in the general." He turned to Will. "So where to now?"

"Back to Cedar Rapids. We're staying a second night at our hotel there and heading out first thing tomorrow for another town hall."

"Good. Hopefully by then they'll have found that damn plane, and the media can stop obsessing about Matt Santos and start talking about the real presidential candidates, huh?" Russell nodded at Will, who nodded back as they boarded the bus.

Donna found herself visually shooting daggers at the Vice President as she followed him onto the bus.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Josh cupped his hands over his face and blew into them, trying to warm his painfully cold cheeks and nose as he huddled close to Matt underneath the makeshift shelter they'd constructed out of branches and leaves. With Matt only having the use of his left hand and Josh unable to stand up, the shelter wasn't likely to be featured in any Boy Scout manuals, but it was keeping at least some of the falling snow off of them.

They'd quickly concluded that their drenched clothes were only serving to make them even colder, so they'd changed out of them and instead had wrapped themselves tightly in their still-serviceable coats, along with the emergency blankets they'd brought with them. Overall, it was a much more intimate scenario than Josh would normally feel comfortable sharing with another man, but staying warm was the priority. They didn't have the luxury of squeamishness.

They'd made a valiant effort to build a fire, but even with the survival training Matt had received in the Marines, the heavy snow and wet wood had made it impossible. They'd gone through about half of the matches they'd brought, and then decided to conserve the rest and try again if the weather cleared.

Josh shivered. It seemed to be getting colder with each passing minute. And it was only going to get worse. He didn't know what time it was; he had his BlackBerry with him, but the battery had gone dead about an hour after they'd left the plane. But even with the cloud cover, he could see the sky getting darker. The sun would be going down soon.

"Well, look at it this way," Matt commented, his voice shaking slightly from the cold. "At least this gets me out of having to give the ethanol speech."

"Yeah, quite an elaborate ruse you constructed there," Josh chuckled, grateful for the distraction. They sat quietly for a moment, and then Josh spoke again. "So were you really going to do it? Get up there and diss ethanol right before the Iowa caucus?"

"I have no idea what I was going to do. I was going back and forth about every five minutes." Matt paused. "Lot of speculation that Vinick might decide to hold the line against ethanol in his speech."

"If I were his campaign manager, that's what I'd advise him to do," Josh responded.

Matt gaped slightly at him. "So the high road's okay for Arnold Vinick, but not for me?"

"You guys are in different situations. There's no clear Republican front-runner yet. And besides, Vinick has such a long anti-ethanol record that he couldn't have run away from it convincingly anyway. So he'll get clobbered in Iowa, which was going to happen regardless – forget ethanol, his pro-choice position alone is enough to kill him here – but the national press will fawn over how bold and straight-talking he is."

"They'll be right."

"As for you, you're running against a sitting Vice President and a former Vice President," Josh continued. "You have exactly two chances to stage an upset: Iowa and New Hampshire. You can't afford to…" Josh paused as some of the old intensity crept into his voice, and then sighed. "Anyway, not that it matters now."

"Why did you want me to run, Josh?" Matt asked quietly after a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can't figure it out. You knew what I thought of all this political gamesmanship. You knew I was so sick of it I was ready to quit Congress and get out of the business altogether. So when you asked me to run, I figured that must be what you wanted – someone who didn't want to play the game, who would be himself and tell people what he really believed, even if it wasn't necessarily good politics."

"It _is_ what I want," Josh insisted.

"Then how come every time I try to be something other than a cardboard cutout of a candidate, we end up yelling at each other?"

Josh sighed. "Because I also want you to get elected, congressman. This isn't a vanity exercise for me; it's not a let's-raise-some-important-issues-and-then-go-home campaign. It's about who's going to be sitting in the Oval Office once Jed Bartlet's term is over. And I don't know…" he paused for a moment. "I don't know how to run the kind of totally pure, ideals-driven campaign you want, one that refuses even the smallest of compromises, and also, you know, wins. I don't know if it's even possible. And I don't want Bob Russell or, worse, a Republican to be our next President because we insisted on going to the mat for some 8-year-old quote about the Mayflower."

"I just want to make sure that by the time this campaign is over, people can still tell the difference between me and Bob Russell. By some means other than the fact that I have a deeper tan and he wears cowboy boots."

"I don't think you need to worry about that," Josh commented with a smirk. He marveled at the fact that they were stranded in woods in the middle of a snowstorm, hypothermia undoubtedly setting in, and still arguing about politics. But it was probably a good thing; the animated conversation seemed to be getting his blood flowing a little bit, and he didn't feel quite as cold.

They sat in silence for a minute. "So why'd you say yes?" Josh asked. "What made you go from being dead set on moving back to Texas to deciding to run for President?"

"Not as good at sustaining cynicism as I thought I was?" Matt offered with a shrug.

"I'm not actually sure what made you so cynical in the first place," Josh commented. "I mean, yeah, God knows the system can be disgusting sometimes. Especially on your end of Pennsylvania Avenue," he added with a sideways glance at Matt.

"Hey, the White House hasn't exactly been above reproach either."

"Jed Bartlet is the best President this country has had in decades," Josh responded defensively.

"I don't disagree." Matt paused for a moment. "In fact, I think that was part of the problem."

"What do you mean?" Josh glanced quizzically at him.

"Well, before, when it was a Republican in power, I could tell myself that was the problem. If we could only get someone good in…not just a Democrat, but a principled Democrat, someone smart, who shares my liberal values…everything would be different. And then we did get a President like that, and…nothing changed."

"I wouldn't say 'nothing,'" Josh argued.

"Not enough changed. Not nearly enough."

"Only so much he can do with a Republican Congress. He was elected President, not dictator."

"Yeah, but Bob Russell for Vice President? I mean, really? There was a reason the Speaker put Bingo Bob on that idiotic list, you know, and it wasn't because it would be good for Democrats. Or for the country."

"The Vice President has to be confirmed by Congress," Josh pointed out in reflexive defense of the President, though privately he agreed with Matt on that point. "The Speaker made it clear they weren't going to confirm the President's first choice."

"…who I assume was Berryhill. Impeccable credentials, unquestionably qualified…"

"Which was exactly why the Republicans wouldn't let the President have him."

"They were bluffing."

"The President didn't think so. Neither did the House Minority Leader."

"You really think they'd have blocked a nominee like that, for what would have been transparently political purposes? At a time when the importance of the vice presidency was more obvious to the American people than since Kennedy was shot? It would have blown up in their faces. They'd have looked like partisan hacks. Worse: unpatriotic partisan hacks."

Josh didn't answer right away. He didn't have a good answer; he knew Matt was right. Josh had been against caving on the vice presidential pick from the start, but he'd seemed to be the only one who felt that way. "It was a hard time for him," he said finally. "Zoey had just been kidnapped…"

"I know. I know," Matt said softly. "I'm a father; I can't begin to imagine what he went through." He was quiet for a moment. "But it wasn't just the President. It seemed like all of you guys kind of lost the will to fight. Leo McGarry especially. Everyone in the West Wing, really, except for you."

Josh looked up in surprise.

Matt continued. "I know you got burned pretty badly by the Carrick incident, Josh, but I have to say I respected the hell out of you for what you did."

"You did?" Josh stared at him, puzzled. "I figured that was probably the kind of hardball politicking you despise."

"No, using our men and women in the military as hostages, holding up their promotions until you get a useless piece of pork for your state – _that's_ the kind of hardball politicking I despise. It was disgraceful what Carrick was doing. His constituents deserved to know about it."

"The Democrats didn't deserve to lose a seat in the Senate, I think was the issue."

"Please. Everyone knew Carrick was already on his way out. He was just looking for an excuse."

"And I gave him one."

"And if you hadn't, he would have found some other excuse."

Josh sighed. "That's not how Leo McGarry saw it."

"I know it wasn't."

They sat quietly for a few moments, and then Matt spoke again. "This isn't a vanity exercise for me, either, Josh. I know what I said in New Hampshire, and I admit I wasn't exactly feeling optimistic about our chances when I said it, but I want you to know I did get in this to win. I mean, you can ask Helen; I think I freaked her out a little back in Houston when I started telling her about your nine-point plan."

"And I don't want to turn you into Bob Russell," Josh answered. "Believe me on that. If I wanted Bingo Bob as President, I'd be running _his_ campaign."

Matt didn't respond. Josh glanced upward at the rapidly darkening sky. It was only going to be getting colder, and the dark would make it infinitely harder for rescuers to find them. He wondered how Ronna and the others were doing. The plane would provide them with at least some insulation and shelter from the storm, but if no one found them and Ronna didn't get medical treatment soon…

He shivered, filled with a new sense of fear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks again to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne**

**Warning: this chapter contains a mention of domestic violence.**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Peter Burton watched the news coverage of the missing Santos plane, feeling a sense of pride that surprised even him.

Sabotaging the plane had been surprisingly easy. He'd figured out a way to tamper with the emergency shutoff mechanism to the fuel line, causing it to activate sometime after takeoff. It hadn't been as complicated as he'd initially feared. All he'd had to do was loosen some connections and gears, so that the heat and vibration from the plane would cause them to fail. As an added touch he was especially proud of, he'd done some creative re-wiring designed to cause the power to the airplane's electrical system to cut out when the fuel line shutoff was activated. The pilot would have no access to the radio or navigation system. He'd also de-activated the Emergency Locator Transmitter. Those things were important; they would help keep the airplane missing, and in the news, for as long as possible. And given the fact that according to the news coverage no distress call had been received from Santos, everything had worked as well in real life as he'd thought it would on paper.

It was funny, the turns life could take. Three weeks ago, this had just been a fantasy. He'd had no idea he was actually going to go through with it. When he'd noticed on his shift one day that the Santos campaign had booked a charter flight from the airport he worked at, he'd started thinking about how the presidential race might be shaken up by one of the candidates – even a minor one – being killed in a plane crash. Maybe Santos's supporters would start searching for a new dark horse candidate to get behind. In any event, Peter's connection to the tragedy – he worked at the airport Santos had taken off from, after all – would definitely get him publicity.

The whole scenario had been appealing. He'd spent hours working on his notebook, designing his plans for the sabotage. He'd even made sure to get assigned to do the pre-flight inspection for the Santos plane, just in case he decided to go through with it. But there was always the risk he'd get caught. Until a week and a half ago, he'd had a wife and a kid, and needed his paycheck. And the truth was that he'd never really had any expectation of becoming President. For decades he'd tried to get on as many ballots as he could, in as many elections as he could, because getting on the ballot meant your statement got published in the Voter's Pamphlet. He had ideas and plans for the country that the "serious" politicians were afraid to discuss. This was a way of taking his solutions straight to the people. But his presidential campaign had hardly seemed worth risking everything for.

But then the company he'd worked at for nearly twenty years had issued him a layoff notice; his job would end at the end of the month. They'd told him he was a victim of the economy, but rumor had it the company planned to replace him and many of his laid-off coworkers with younger employees, straight out of trade school with no experience, who would work for less money.

The night he'd gotten his layoff notice, he'd gone to a bar. Who wouldn't? When he'd gotten home, his bitch of a wife had lectured him – again – about his drinking. When he'd told her what had happened, she'd even suggested that maybe he hadn't been laid off at all; maybe he'd been fired because his drinking was interfering with his work. That had been more than he could take. He'd smacked her a few times, and she'd fallen down the stairs. He probably shouldn't have done that, but after what she'd said? Who could blame him? Then he'd had another drink and gone to bed. The next morning, he'd discovered that his wife was gone, and she'd taken his son. He hadn't seen either of them since.

With no wife, no son, and soon no job, he'd been raging and desperate. That had been his mood when the people from the Democratic Party had come to visit him. That blond woman had seemed so earnest; she'd appeared genuinely interested in his views. She'd looked at him and spoken to him with more respect than anyone had in a long time. If someone like her could take him seriously, maybe other people could, too. Maybe all that had happened to him was a sign that it was his time. Maybe this time his campaign needed to be about more than just getting in voter's pamphlets. Maybe…maybe…he could even win. But he knew something drastic would need to happen for him to get noticed. Before he'd left for his shift that morning, he'd dug out his notebook that contained his plans for the airplane sabotage. When he'd begun the task of getting the plane ready for takeoff, he'd taxied it to one of the more isolated corners of the airfield, where no one would notice that he was doing work that was much different from his assigned duties. The sabotage had taken longer than a standard inspection would have, of course, but no one had asked about it. If they had, he'd come up with some vague answer about a strange light coming on in the dashboard.

Of course, he was exposing himself somewhat. Given the fact that he'd serviced the plane prior to takeoff, he'd probably be questioned. But he'd arranged for the plane to fail in a way that no one doing a routine pre-flight inspection could be expected to notice. The company itself would end up shouldering the blame; it would look as though they'd sent out an aircraft that had been very poorly maintained for some time. Maybe their new policy of firing experienced workers in favor of younger, cheaper ones would come to light. Maybe the countless other companies who routinely did the same thing would take notice. He'd be helping to stop the assault on ordinary workers by the big corporations. If that wasn't something worthy of a presidential candidate, he didn't know what was.

He walked into his kitchen and got a beer out of the fridge. He'd just popped it open when he was startled by the wail of sirens coming down his street. Seconds later, there was a sea of flashing lights outside his house, and he heard a police officer on a bullhorn ordering him to come out with his hands up.

He closed his eyes. He knew he'd been caught; they wouldn't be sending out this kind of response if all they wanted to do was question him about servicing the airplane. He felt his hopes for his presidential campaign vanish in an instant. But he had planned for this contingency, too. One way or another, everyone in the country would know his name, and would know about his ideas for the country.

He went to his computer, logged on to his blog, and started typing.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Donna walked a few paces behind Will and the Vice President as they headed up to Russell's hotel suite. They were planning to have a short meeting to finalize plans for the next day before they all headed to bed

"So anyway," Will was saying, "tomorrow morning we head out early for Des Moines. You'll do a town hall there, and then you have an evening rally planned. It'll be outdoors, rain, shine, or snow. I have a list of talking points you'll want to be sure to bring up at the town hall. They're in my room. I'll run and get them, and be back in a second." He headed down the hall. One of the Vice President's Secret Service agents unlocked the door to his suite for him, did a quick inspection of the room, and then took his position outside the door as Donna and Russell walked in.

Donna automatically reached for the remote and turned on the television. She was about to turn back to the Vice President when the news coverage suddenly had her full attention.

"Police have surrounded the home of Peter Burton, a 58-year-old airplane mechanic who works at the airfield Congressman Santos took off from. Although authorities are being tight-lipped, it is believed this activity is in some way related to the missing airplane. Our reporters have just arrived on the scene, and we will of course be bringing you the latest as it develops."

The papers Donna was holding slipped from her fingers. She didn't even notice. Her face turned as white as a ghost.

"That's him," she whispered, barely recognizing her own voice.

"What?" The Vice President looked over at her.

Before Donna could explain, the news camera zoomed in on the front door, which was opening. Peter Burton came out with his hands up.

"I'd just like to make a statement," he called out over the shouts from police to get on the ground. "I'm unarmed, I'm surrendering; just let me say my piece." Without waiting for permission, he turned his gaze to the sea of news cameras that had assembled, and continued. "I'm being persecuted because my candidacy for President is a threat to the establishment. The authorities will stop at nothing to silence me. That's been made very clear to me today. I know most of the people watching this will probably think I'm crazy, but I'm not. If my ideas for this country are so insignificant, why did several prominent members of the Democratic Party come to visit me this morning, anonymously of course, to tell me how important it was for me to make my voice heard? So to answer the question I know all of you are asking, yes, I sabotaged Matt Santos's airplane. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And If the plane crash draws more attention to my solutions for this country – well, too bad that's what it took, but the country _needs_ to hear what I have to say. I hope all Americans will go to my website," he added, listing the web address.

"Get down on the ground!" an officer roared through a bullhorn.

Burton ignored the order, and instead reached into his back pocket. His claim to be unarmed had apparently been false. Donna gasped when she saw him pull out a pistol.

He didn't even have time to aim it before several gunshots could be heard. Peter Burton's body crumpled to the ground, riddled by bullets from the officers surrounding his home.

As the camera quickly panned away and the news anchors started stammering apologies to the viewers for what had just been broadcast, Donna remained standing in front of the television, so numb she wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to avoid collapsing. Her insides felt like jelly.

"Donna?" Russell's voice registered in her consciousness. "Are you okay?"

"That's him," she said again. "Peter Burton. We were at his house this morning. He's one of the fringe candidates we were trying to stack the debate with. _We_ were the Democrats he mentioned." She suddenly felt like throwing up.

She saw the Vice President frown momentarily. "You didn't give him your names, right?"

Startled, she turned around and stared blankly at him. "What?"

He waved the question off. "Right. I know you know better than that. So there should be no way to link that visit to our campaign. We should be fine. And even if somehow someone does find out it was us – well, hey. He'd filed to run. He was going to be on the ballot. All we have to say is that we were just trying to do some research and find out who he was. The press can't blame us for that. We couldn't possibly have known what he was planning."

"The press?" She continued to stare at him numbly.

"Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it. I don't see how this hurts the campaign."

"The campaign?"

His brow furrowed. "Donna, are you okay?" he asked for a second time.

"Don't you get it?" She started shaking. "We made him think he had a chance in the election. He sabotaged that plane because of us. Because of-" Her voice broke off as the full horror of the situation began to fully sink in.

"You don't know that," Russell argued.

"He practically announced it on live television!"

"Donna, who knows why crazy people do what they do? But it's really not our problem." He glanced toward the door, clearly ready to move on from the topic. "What the heck is taking Will so long, anyway? I told him I wanted this meeting wrapped up quickly so I could get to bed at a decent hour. I don't know how many nights in a row a person can be expected to function on four hours' sleep."

Donna stared at him in shock, her guilt and horror converting at least temporarily to rage. "You bastard."

He started. "Excuse me?"

"You're worried about getting a good night's sleep? Six people may be dead. _Josh_ may be dead. Don't you even care that we may have pushed his murderer over the edge with our sleazy, pathetic campaign tactics?"

Russell's eyes flashed angrily. "I think you're forgetting who you're talking to."

She ignored him. "You _don't_ care, do you? As long as the media can't link us to the carnage, that's all that matters to you, isn't it, you son of a bitch?" Her voice shook violently, and tears had started forming in her eyes.

"You just stepped _way_ over the line." Russell's voice rose.

She knew she had, but it didn't stop her. "Josh was your friend. I mean, maybe not your friend, exactly, but he sure gave you a lot of free political advice you didn't deserve when he was at the White House, or have you forgotten that? My God, are you even _capable_ of caring about anyone other than yourself?"

Russell turned and glared at her, his jaw twitching. He clearly wasn't used to being talked to like this, and he didn't like it. When he spoke, his voice was as cold as ice. "A lunatic sabotaging an airplane doesn't change the fact that I intend to be the next President. And if you're not up to helping me get there, I'll find someone else who is. Trust me, you're not so invaluable to this campaign that you can't be replaced in about five minutes. Don't count on having a job tomorrow morning."

"Screw you!" She turned and began storming toward the door. She couldn't stand to be in the same room with him for another second.

"Just where do you think you're going? I decide when this conversation is over. Hey!" As she stalked past him on her way to the door, he reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her.

She knew almost as soon as she'd done it that her next action was a horrendous mistake, but by then it was too late. Reflex took over, and she turned and pushed the Vice President away from her, harder than she'd intended to. He stumbled back against an end table, knocking a lamp to the floor.

The sound got the attention of the Secret Service agent stationed outside the door, who quickly entered the room. When he did, he saw the lamp on the floor, the Vice President holding onto the end table to regain his balance, and Donna standing several feet away from him, red-faced and teary.

"What's going on?" the agent demanded, carefully positioned himself between the Vice President and Donna, his hand on his holstered gun.

Russell recovered and stood up straight. "She just pushed me into the table."

"I did…I did…" Through the other emotions that were racing in Donna's body, fear began to surface as she began to realize the kind of trouble she was in. "He grabbed my arm." Suddenly that sounded like a pathetically weak defense.

The Vice President looked flustered for a moment, as if deciding how to respond to the charge. Then he met her eyes coldly. "I did nothing of the sort."

Her jaw dropped in disbelief. "You liar!"

Russell sighed and turned to the agent. "Look, just deal with it, okay? And get her out of here. I don't have time for this crap."

Donna closed her eyes in disbelief as she felt handcuffs being placed around her wrists and listened to the agent informing her of her Miranda rights. As he led her away, they nearly ran into Will, who came through the door, memos in hand.

"Sorry to take so long. I was watching the news. Did you guys see-" his voice broke off as the scene in front of him registered. "What the-"

Whatever he said next faded from Donna's ears as the agent continued leading her down the hall.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thanks again to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne.**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Donna sat on the cot in a small jail cell, shaking. She was grateful that at least she had a cell by herself; they didn't put national security threats in with other inmates, she supposed bitterly. Or maybe it was because they feared she was sick and contagious; she'd been so distraught she'd thrown up twice, once in the back of the patrol car and once in the police station waiting to be booked – something which hadn't exactly endeared her to the officers who had been escorting her.

This whole day was feeling more and more like a bad dream, except she knew it wasn't. She'd barely stopped crying since the incident with the Vice President. When she remembered sitting in Peter Burton's living room, cheerily telling him how important his ideas were and how he needed to shake up the presidential race, while all the while wheels were turning in his head about bringing down the airplane that Josh was getting ready to board…she found herself nearly throwing up again at the thought.

She'd known the man was unstable. She'd known almost every one of the fringe candidates she'd visited that morning was unstable. Thirty seconds into that meeting, she should have announced she'd made a mistake and left. She shouldn't have continued with an absurd campaign strategy that, at best, would have embarrassed the Democratic Party with a debate filled with nuts, and at worst…she shuddered involuntarily. In her wildest imagination, she couldn't picture Jed Bartlet going along with such a tactic when he'd first run for President. He would have seen it for the irresponsible, indefensible, cowardly move it was. He would have understood that if he needed to be standing next to the likes of Peter Burton to appear presidential, he _wasn't_ presidential.

She'd long recognized, of course, that Bob Russell was no Jed Bartlet, but what horrified her now was how little she'd cared about that fact. Russell was the front-runner, and that was all that had mattered. His was the most prestigious campaign to be working on, and he'd hired _her_ to be a part of his team. Whenever questions had surfaced in her mind about whether the man she was trying to get elected should actually _be_ President, she'd ignored them, reminding herself of her new title and her new paycheck. Wasn't it normal to want to get ahead in the workplace, after all?

Maybe, she realized glumly now, but most normal people weren't working for presidents and vice presidents. Most normal people's careers didn't have direct implications for the welfare of the nation, even the world. Most normal people couldn't, with one ill-advised visit to a nutcase, inadvertently convince him to sabotage a congressman's plane.

She let out a long, shuddering breath. She didn't know what was going to happen to her now. She'd been questioned by the Secret Service and had been about to tell them everything that had happened in the hotel room when at the last minute she'd thought better of it. Without a lawyer, with Russell lying about what had happened, and given the fact that she'd been too upset to think straight anyway, she'd decided it was best to exercise her right to remain silent. She'd see about getting a lawyer in the morning; at the moment, she just didn't have the strength for it. She'd been told she'd have a court appearance, probably sometime the next day. She hadn't used her one phone call yet. In her anguish and humiliation, there was only one person she could imagine being able to bring herself to talk to, and she couldn't call him. She closed her eyes, longing for Josh. If he was dead, she knew with certainty that she would never forgive herself.

She glanced up in time to see a female guard walking by the cell, and quickly got to her feet. "Hey!" she called out. The guard ignored her, and she ran to the front of her cell. "Excuse me? Ma'am?"

The guard stopped walking and slowly turned around. "Yes?"

"I was wondering…could you do me a huge favor…?" Donna's voice shook.

"A favor?" The guard raised her eyebrows skeptically.

"Please…I just need…" Donna found herself stammering. "Please. Could you just tell me if there's any news…if they've found that plane…the Santos plane?" She suddenly felt her heart racing, terrified of the answer, whatever it might be.

"Lady, I'm at work. You think I get to sit around and watch TV all day?"

"No, but…maybe you could ask someone. Or check the internet. Or something. Please?"

The guard shook her head in disgust. "You spoiled, prima donna DC types. You really do think a lowly prison guard like me must have nothing better to do with her day than check the internet and bring you the latest news headlines as you sit in your jail cell."

"I don't…I don't think that…it's just that it's important. You don't understand-" Donna's voice was tinged with desperation.

"Look, sweetie, I'm sure some high-priced lawyer will have you out of here in no time. You'll have to wait until then to get your cable news fix." The guard shook her head and walked away.

As Donna walked back to the cot, she realized there was a part of her that was relieved by the guard's refusal to help her. She was dangerously close to a complete breakdown as it was. Hearing that Josh was dead might be more than she could have taken at the moment.

But he was, wasn't he? She closed her eyes. An image of his mangled body lying amidst twisted metal filled her mind, tormenting her. Every hour that passed without news on the plane made it harder for her to convince herself of anything but the worst. If he hadn't been killed instantly in the crash, he'd succumbed to hypothermia in the hours that had followed. She would never see him again. And her taunting of him in New Hampshire, her frostiness when they'd encountered each other in the hotel – those would turn out to be the last words she'd ever speak to him. She sobbed bitterly. Her rationalizations for her behavior toward him began to echo in her head, now sounding hollow and absurd. She'd needed to get over him. She'd needed to convince _him_ she was over him. And then a new sense of horror swept over her. What if she'd succeeded at that last part? Had he died thinking she didn't even care about him?

Suddenly she couldn't even remember what the point of it all had been. Why had she needed to get over him, anyway? Why had she ever needed or wanted to get him out of her life? Yes, she'd begun to despair of the notion that there would ever be anything romantic between them. For all the moments that she'd interpreted as hints that he might be interested in her, he'd never made a move, not even after Gaza. Knowing on a rational level that he was her boss and there were a million reasons why he _shouldn't_ make a move hadn't stopped it from feeling like a rejection. And yes, she'd felt a strong desire to do something important with her life, and she'd somehow concluded that assistant work in service of an administration she believed in with all her heart didn't fit the bill, that her life wouldn't matter unless she could obtain a fancy, prestigious job title, even if it meant working for someone like Bingo Bob. And the string of canceled lunches had been just the impetus she'd needed to start nursing a bona fide grudge against Josh, telling herself it was proof of just how low she was on his priority list. But those all seemed like pathetic excuses now. None of that mattered; you still didn't just walk away from someone you cared about, discarding him like old furniture that had served its purpose and was no longer needed.

"_Trust me, you're not so invaluable to this campaign that you can't be replaced in about five minutes."_ Bob Russell's icy words echoed in her head, along with other words.

"_I think you might find me valuable…"_

"_You have tremendous value to me…"_

"_Donna's here because she's invaluable…"_

The contrast tore at her heart. She knew Josh would never have said something like what Russell had said to her. She'd never been replaceable to him, not as an assistant or as anything else. She'd known that, even if she'd been pretending not to know it lately. She'd known it, and she'd still walked out on her job and on him without so much as a goodbye. The times when she'd felt ignored by him, particularly during the last weeks of her job…it hadn't been because he didn't care about her. It was because he'd been, as he always was, so consumed by the welfare of the President and the administration, and by extension the country, that he'd lost track of things like non-business related lunch dates. It was an ethic they'd all shared in the Bartlet White House: their jobs came first, because their jobs were so critical, not just for themselves but for the nation and the world.

Work consumed every waking minute on the Russell campaign, too, but the difference couldn't be starker. There were some young staffers who obviously believed in the Vice President, who didn't really know him but figured that if President Bartlet had chosen him for VP, he must be pretty amazing. But Donna had always known better, and she was pretty sure Will did too. They both knew they were working to serve the interests of one man, their boss – and that their boss was motivated by his own ambition, not by any particular sense of patriotism or altruism. And of course, she and Will had been serving their own interests, too, because if Russell got to the White House he'd most likely take them with him. Donna knew now with devastating clarity which of her two most recent jobs she was most proud of. But now it was too late.

"I'm sorry, Josh," she whispered out loud, hoping that maybe somehow, wherever he was, he could hear her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Josh and Matt sat together under the dark sky, huddled even closer together than they had been earlier. The snow had finally stopped and the skies had cleared. There was a full moon out, which provided them with some light. Not much, but before the clouds had cleared it had been almost pitch black in their little spot in the woods. The clear sky was good, Josh figured; it would make it easier for the rescuers to find them. But it also meant that the temperature was dropping rapidly. Josh's mind felt foggy, as if he'd had too much to drink. He was pretty sure he remembered reading that that was a symptom of hypothermia. It could probably also be the result of a head injury, he supposed. Either way, he was pretty sure it wasn't a good thing.

He didn't know how long they'd been there. The hours had passed incredibly slowly. After he and Matt had gotten as warm as they reasonably could have, it had occurred to Matt that they should find a way to splint their injured limbs. Matt had found some sticks the right size, and they'd used their belts to secure the sticks to Josh's leg and Matt's wrist. Josh wasn't sure how much good the splints actually did, but he supposed they were better than nothing.

Then they'd both started to notice how thirsty they were getting. It had been hours since they'd had anything to drink. They'd resorted to drinking melted snow, hoping they weren't ingesting any noxious germs.

After the snow had stopped, he and Matt had made another feeble effort to build a fire, but by that time their hands were so cold they could barely hold the matches. Now they were sitting under their shelter, still wrapped tightly in the foil emergency blankets, shivering almost incessantly. Matt had told him the shivering was actually a good thing; when and if the shivering stopped, they'd know they were really in trouble. On one level, that information was comforting; on another, it was a terrifying reminder of how much worse things could – would – get if they weren't rescued soon. Josh realized he was barely able to detect the pain from his broken leg anymore; instead, his whole body hurt from the cold. Even breathing was painful.

He took a moment to steel himself. They couldn't give in; they had to keep their spirits up. He felt Matt lean in against him for warmth, and let himself chuckle. "Imagine the scandal if someone were to spot us with a telephoto lens right about now."

"If anyone spots us, with a telephoto lens or anything else, I'd hope their first call would be to search and rescue, not _The National Enquirer_," Matt responded, his voice chattering from the cold.

"Well, yeah."

"Man, Helen's going to kill me when…" Matt's voice broke off, as if he'd belatedly noticed the irony of what he'd just said. "She hates it when I fly these planes. Whenever there's a news story about a small plane crashing, she uses it as an excuse to lecture me about how dangerous they are, and how it's high time I find a new hobby and start flying commercial like everyone else."

"Like commercial jets never crash."

"Well yeah, but..." Matt's voice trailed off. "What about you? Any girlfriends to yell at you for getting on a plane the size of a large bird?" He paused and glanced at Josh. "Or, you know, boyfriends?"

"You asking me out on a date or something?" Josh quipped. This conversation was getting weird.

"No, no. It's just…it occurs to me that I know all about your professional life, but I don't think I know anything about your personal life."

"Personal life? What's that?"

Matt didn't respond right away, and Josh shook his head, feeling inexplicably sad. "No. I think I've accepted my fate as a perpetual bachelor."

"You know, I could never imagine myself married either, until I met Helen. You'll find the right person eventually."

Josh shuddered hard, not just from the cold. Suddenly the feeling of sadness was overwhelming. "That's just it," he found himself responding, his voice sounding distant. "I did meet the right person."

"Really?" Matt glanced at him. "What happened?"

Josh was quiet for a long moment, trying to figure out the best way to answer that question. Finally, he just shrugged, unable to keep the pain out of his voice as he said, "She left me."

"Oh." Matt looked down. "Sorry."

"Well, technically we weren't exactly…" Josh began to try to explain, and then gave up. "It's a long story."

They sat in silence for a moment, and then Matt spoke. "What did you mean before, when you said you didn't want one more death on your conscience?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Josh. No one says something like that unless they mean something by it." Then he shook his head. "Never mind. I don't mean to pry; it's none of my business."

Josh sat silently for a long moment. "When I was seven years old, my sister died in a house fire. She was babysitting me. I ran out of the house. She didn't."

"God. I'm sorry." He heard Matt let out a breath, then do a double take as he realized the full implication of Josh's words. "Wait – and you think that was your fault?"

"Well…you know."

"Jesus, Josh. You were seven."

"So people keep telling me."

They sat quietly for awhile. Josh could feel his eyelids drooping. He wasn't sure whether he was just falling asleep or starting to lose consciousness, but he knew he had to fight it. He began deliberately fidgeting, trying to generate a bit of warmth, but it didn't seem to help. His muscles felt heavy, and even that slight movement was much more difficult than it should have been.

He was beginning to lose the battle to stay awake when his ears registered the unmistakable sound of a helicopter in the sky. It was faint at first, but quickly got louder. He looked at Matt, trying to determine whether the congressman heard it too or if it was just a figment of his imagination. The look on Matt's face confirmed that he did hear it.

"Hey! We're here!" Josh called out irrationally at the chopper, as loudly as his voice, feeble and shaking from the cold, would allow him to. He watched as Matt, with substantial effort, managed to stand up and start waving. Josh waved helplessly from his sitting position. He couldn't stand up with his broken leg, and even if his leg hadn't been broken, he wasn't sure he'd have had the strength to get up.

After a few more minutes, the helicopter started descending on a location that didn't look all that far away from them. It was in the direction they'd come from when they'd started walking. With the fog in his brain, it took Josh several minutes to realize that the helicopter must have spotted the airplane wreckage.

And that had to mean it was only a matter of time before they were found as well. Josh and Matt exchanged relieved glances. Their ordeal was almost over.


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks as always to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne...**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Josh opened his eyes slowly and looked around at the sterile white walls of his hospital room. He'd been drifting in and out of sleep for the last several hours. He'd been wrapped in a warming blanket for several hours, but that had now been removed. His leg was in a white plaster cast. He was pretty sure he'd been given some painkillers when he'd been admitted, but they seemed to be wearing off, because he was starting to become more aware of the pain in his leg. Or maybe it was just because his body had finally been warmed to the normal temperature and he was no longer numb with cold.

The time that had passed between when he'd initially heard the helicopter and when he and Matt had been found had probably been less than an hour, but it had felt infinitely longer. He remembered worrying that maybe the rescuers wouldn't find them at all, but they'd eventually heard Matt and him feebly calling for help. Then had come the challenge of getting him out of the ravine with his broken leg. They'd ended up having to strap him to a stretcher and lift him directly into the helicopter, something which he'd probably have found both terrifying and humiliating if he hadn't been too groggy, and too relieved to be rescued, to register any other emotions.

After he'd gotten to the hospital, he'd called his mother's cell phone as soon as he'd been able to. She'd been at the airport trying to get on standby for a flight to Iowa. He'd told her he was okay, and managed to convince her she didn't need to come up.

Ronna's mother had stopped by his room about two hours ago. She'd looked pale and exhausted as she'd told him that Ronna was in surgery but that the prognosis was good. They expected she'd make a full recovery. Everyone else on the plane was safe, too. They'd all been treated for hypothermia and various sprains, fractures, and other injuries, but they'd live.

A tragedy had been averted. Everyone was okay. Josh knew he should be thankful, and he was. But one thought tormented him whenever he let himself acknowledge it: Donna hadn't come to see him. Every time he'd woken up after having dozed off in his hospital bed, he'd glanced at the nightstand, hoping to see a card or note, something to indicate she'd come while he'd been asleep, but there was nothing.

He didn't know why he'd thought she would have come. She was working for his opponent's campaign, and it was the middle of the night. Well, early morning by now, he corrected himself mentally, noting the clock on the wall that indicated it was now a little after 6:00 am. Maybe she'd come later in the day. Or maybe not.

But in his heart he was absolutely certain that the Donna he'd known, the one he'd fallen in love with, would have come immediately, no matter what time it was or what kind of tension and unresolved issues lay between them. She would have been sitting by his bed when he'd woken up. But that Donna didn't exist anymore. She was different now. She was a happy, confident, upwardly mobile young woman. And if he'd had any doubt about it before, he now knew for sure that he no longer factored into her life. It was really over between them, whatever "it" had been. Josh fought back tears, his heart feeling emptier than it had in a long time.

He lay motionless on the bed for several minutes, absorbing the loss, and then began searching for a distraction. He raised his bed into a sitting position and began looking for the television controls, eventually finding them on the bedside rail. But when he clicked on the "power" button, nothing happened. He clicked again. Still just a black screen. Great. No TV. Just him and his miserable thoughts.

"I unplugged it earlier, while you were asleep and the nurses weren't looking." Josh was startled by the sound of the familiar voice.

"Leo!"

"Hey, kid." Leo walked toward him, pulled up a chair, and sat down by his bed. "You've gotta stop scaring us like this; I've already had one heart attack."

"Sorry."

"Everyone's been worried sick back in DC, you know," Leo told him. "The President's going to call you later. As soon as I tell him you're up for it."

"Thanks. Tell everyone I'm fine."

"Only you could define a concussion, a broken leg, and a body temperature of 93 when you were rescued as 'fine.'"

"Well…you know."

"Yeah."

Josh changed the subject. "You unplugged my TV?"

"Yeah."

"Leooo…"

"You need to rest. The last thing you need is your blood pressure spiking over the idiot talking heads on FOX News."

"I'm not a masochist. I'll watch CNN."

"Oh yeah, that's much better."

"Come on. I need to watch the news. Not just for my amusement, Leo. I'm still running a campaign here; I need to know how all this is playing out. Excuse me," he called to a woman in scrubs who was walking by, "Can I get my TV plugged back in?"

"Just give us a minute," Leo insisted to the woman, who shrugged and continued working. "Josh, there's something I need to tell you."

"What?"

"Donna." He paused for a moment. "I don't really know the best way to explain this. You see-"

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

"What?" Leo looked at him in surprise.

"She can't come see me." Josh couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "She'd love to, but the Russell campaign's gone back to New Hampshire or South Carolina or wherever the hell their next stop is, and she just can't make it. But she asked you to give me her best; that was very thoughtful of her."

"Josh-"

"It's okay. Really. It's fine." The sarcasm dropped from Josh's voice, and now he just sounded sad and resigned.

"Josh, she's in jail."

The words took several moments to register. When they did, he studied Leo's face to see if he was kidding. His former boss's expression was deadly serious.

"What?" He sat up straighter in his bed, staring at Leo. "For _what_?"

"Assaulting the Vice President."

"_What_?" Josh was sitting upright now, his face registering shock.

"I was hoping you wouldn't have to hear about it until you were out of the hospital. That's why I unplugged your TV. I didn't want you getting upset."

"Leo, what in God's name happened?"

Leo sighed. "I don't know the details. I've called Russell's office, and his cell phone, and Will Bailey's phone, but they don't seem to be taking my calls. But according to the press reports, she allegedly pushed him into a table in his hotel suite."

"She pushed him into a table?" Josh repeated the words disbelievingly.

"Allegedly. There were no witnesses, but that's what the statement from the Secret Service said."

"Why on Earth would she…?"

"I have no idea."

"Oh my God." Josh buried his head in his hands, his mind swimming. What had happened? What in the world could have possessed her to do something like that? He couldn't imagine Donna physically attacking anyone, let alone someone with Secret Service protection. Not unless…

She'd pushed the Vice President. In a hotel room. With no one else around. Suddenly Josh felt ill as only one possible explanation came to mind. He clenched his fists, trying to keep down the rage that was building inside him.

"Josh? You okay?"

Josh stared at the bedsheets, his voice low and gravelly. "Leo, tell me right now, are there any rumors that I've somehow missed about Russell having problems around women?"

"If there are, I've missed them too. I haven't heard anything."

"The bastard!" Josh exclaimed, slamming his fist against the bed rail, Leo's words having no effect on him. The lack of rumors didn't mean anything. Men like that generally knew how to cover their tracks.

"Now come on, Josh, you're really jumping to conclusions here. There's no reason to think anything like that happened."

"Something happened! He did something to her. Donna Moss doesn't just go around attacking people, not unless she had a damn good reason. You know that, Leo."

"I'll have the President give Russell a call and try to figure out what happened. Ignoring my phone calls is one thing. Ignoring the President is quite another."

"Yeah, like there's any chance we're going to get the truth out of him."

"He's the Vice President of the United States, Josh. Appointed by someone you and I both admire."

"Jeff Haffley picked him, not the President. And if any of you still think _that_ was a smart decision…"

"Josh-"

"She must be so scared." Josh's voice became quiet. "I have to see her."

"I don't think the doctors are going to be letting you out of here for a little while. Not with that concussion, and they want to monitor your heart, too, after the ordeal your body's been through."

"Well, that's too bad. I have to see her _now_. She's all alone in there – has _anyone_ been to see her?" Josh suddenly demanded.

"I'll go as soon as visiting hours start. They're going to be setting bail at her arraignment later today; I'll make sure she's covered as far as that goes. And you know we're going to make sure she has the best lawyers money can buy."

Josh ignored Leo as a nurse came by to check some of the equipment by his bed. "Excuse me, who do I see about getting discharged?"

"Oh, the doctor doesn't want you discharged for at least another twelve hours – possibly not until tomorrow morning," the nurse informed him matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, fine. I understand that. I'm telling you I need to leave now."

"Sir, you can't."

"You guys can't keep me here against my will."

"Joshua-" a warning note sounded in Leo's voice.

"Sir, you need to be monitored. We need to make sure there are no lasting adverse effects from-"

"He knows. Just ignore him," Leo told the nurse.

"Bring me the discharge papers," Josh snapped.

"Damnit, Josh, what are you trying to do, kill yourself?"

"I'm fine, Leo! My body temperature is back to normal, my leg's in a cast, and there's nothing else they can do for that until it heals on its own. I'm not going to lie here and be 'monitored' while Donna's sitting in a jail cell."

"And what makes you think she wants to see you, anyway?"

Josh felt his heart drop. He wasn't consoled in the least by the look of regret that crossed Leo's face as soon as the words were out.

"I'm just saying-" Leo began to backtrack.

"If she doesn't want me there, she can tell me so herself." Josh's voice was tinged with hurt, but still determined.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

About forty-five minutes later and over many more of Leo's arguments and protests, Josh scribbled his signature on each sheet of a pile of forms, indicating he understood he was leaving the hospital against medical advice and releasing the hospital from any liability. His newly-issued pair of crutches were tucked under his arms; he would be needing them for at least the next six weeks while his leg healed. Luckily, he had some experience using crutches. Shortly after he'd gotten his first job on the Hill, he'd been sprinting down the Capitol steps trying to find his boss, who had disappeared for parts unknown right before an important vote had been unexpectedly called, and he'd taken a bad fall and broken his ankle. That had been nearly 20 years ago, but while using crutches might not be quite like riding a bike, he'd found himself able to maneuver around the hospital corridors with them with relative competence. The doctor had written him a prescription for painkillers, which he'd stuffed in his pocket. He'd fill it later if the pain got too bad. Right now he needed to help Donna, and he didn't want his mind clouded with drugs.

He felt sick when he thought about what must have happened in Russell's hotel room. The image of the Vice President making a pass at Donna, so aggressively that she'd had to physically push him away, and then get arrested by the Secret Service for defending herself, horrified him. And that she'd had to go through that at the hands of someone from the administration he'd spent seven years working for, someone he'd had a role in selecting…

President Bartlet had made the choice to appoint Russell, of course, but he'd relied on his staff for guidance and vetting. Especially then, after what he'd just been through with Zoey. Josh should have done more than just voice his opposition to the appointment. He should have dug harder into Russell's background. A slimeball like that, surely there was something there that he'd missed, a reason he could have given Leo and the President for rejecting Russell that was more concrete than "he's an empty suit and boring as hell." If he had, Donna wouldn't be sitting in a jail cell right now.

And of course, Leo was right. It was possible that Josh's imagination was running away with him about what had happened in the hotel room. But Russell had to have done _something_ horrendous to provoke that kind of reaction from Donna, Josh was certain of that much.

"You do know this is probably one of the stupidest things you've ever done, right?" he heard Leo say as he finished signing the papers.

Josh looked up at him. "Don't be mad at me, Leo,"

Leo sighed. "I'm not mad. Just promise me, if you start feeling dizzy, or like anything's wrong…anything at all…you'll come right back."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Promise me, Josh."

"I promise."

"I checked; the jail doesn't allow visitors before 9am. How do you figure you're even going to get in to see her?"

"I'll…you know. Figure something out."

"I have no doubt," Leo sighed.

Josh handed the forms to the receptionist and turned to Leo. "When the congressman is discharged, could you tell him where I am and that I'll be back as soon as I can, and I'll explain everything then?"

"Sure."

"And…you know. Make sure he gets in front of the news cameras. A lot."

Leo smiled. "I will."

"Thanks."

Josh turned to leave, but before he walked away, Leo spoke. "Hey, I didn't mean what I said about Donna. I was just trying to keep you from leaving the hospital. Of course she wants to see you."

Josh took a deep breath. "I guess we'll find out soon enough, won't we?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_"Hey, blondie," the female guard walked up to her cell._

_"What?"_

_"That plane you were asking about? They found it."_

_"They did?" Donna raced to the front of the cell. "Is Josh okay?"_

_The guard shrugged. "I guess all the passengers survived except one."_

_"Who?" Donna started to feel sick. She knew what was coming._

_The guard gestured toward the corner of the cell, where a television seemed to have suddenly appeared. A rescue helicopter was lifting what Donna knew had to be a body bag from the airplane wreckage. The bright red words at the bottom of the screen confirmed it: "Josh Lyman Dead at 45."_

_"No!"_

She didn't know if she'd actually screamed out loud, or if it was just in her dream, but in any case it was enough to wake her up. She slowly sat up on the cot, shaking. She'd managed to doze off several times over the last few hours, and each time she'd had a variation on the same dream. The plane found and Josh dead.

She dropped her head into her hands, the tears coming again. She'd been tormented all night by memories of Josh, memories which in the past had always served to comfort her and make her smile, but now just made her cry even harder. The day she'd snuck into the Bartlet campaign headquarters and assigned herself to be his assistant. The note he'd written in the book he'd given her for their first Christmas in the White House. The time he'd gotten the President to make a phone call to Mrs. Morello. The snowballs on Inauguration Day.

She remembered the prank she and that guy Michael had pulled on Josh, way back during the Bartlet transition, in retaliation for Josh calling her Bambiesque. Afterward, Michael had told her that Josh had said he'd vouch for her with his life, and that as soon as he'd thought it might be serious, he'd refused to so much as confirm how long she'd worked for him and had started talking about getting her a lawyer. They'd shared a good laugh over the fact that Josh wasn't as insusceptible to gullibility as he liked to pretend, but in her heart she'd been touched by the trust he'd expressed in her, and how quickly he'd moved to protect her. The truth was, she _had_ been feeling scared about going to work at the White House, where the stakes were so much higher than anything she'd experienced before, and the potential consequences of a screw-up so much greater. The "prank" had reassured her that if she ever did find herself in trouble for real, Josh would have her back.

And he always had. He'd found a way to protect her from a perjury charge after she'd lied about her diary. He'd smoothed things over for her as best he could after she'd lied about that quote Jack had given the _Post_, even figuring out with Danny's help that she hadn't been the source after all. And he'd flown out to Gaza to see her – and Will had been right, whatever that trip had meant, she knew it hadn't just been about P.R.

She needed him now. She needed him to hold her and tell her everything would be all right. But he wasn't there, and nothing would ever be all right again. It was only a matter of time before one of her dreams played out for real. Before she learned that the plane had been found and that Josh was dead.

"Miss?" It was a different guard this time, one who didn't look quite as hostile as the other one, but Donna didn't dare ask about the plane.

"Yes?" She didn't get up from her sitting position on her cot.

"You have a visitor."

"Who?" She blinked in surprise.

"Just so you know, this is highly irregular. Visitors usually aren't allowed before 9:00. Usually through phones and windows, but I don't want to have to answer any questions if I open that room up early. Just for the record, I'll deny this ever happened if anyone asks me. Anyway, guess it pays to have friends in high places, huh?" She gestured to her right, and he approached the jail cell. Donna's heart stopped beating.

Josh. He was on crutches, his leg in a cast, and there was a large bump on the right side of his forehead. But he was alive.

She wanted to get up and run to him, put her hands through the bars and hold him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. A part of her was afraid she was still dreaming, and that once she tried to touch him, he'd vanish. And besides, her muscles didn't quite seem to be working at the moment. So she just stared at him, her mouth open slightly in shock.

She wasn't sure what she looked like, but he must not have interpreted her expression as a welcoming one, because his gaze dropped to the floor, and he suddenly looked mortified that he'd come.

"Donna, look…" he began. He looked up again at her, and his expression softened as he studied her face, which she knew must be horribly red and blotchy from hours of crying. "I know how scared you must be, but I really think it's going to be okay. I left messages with a couple different defense firms. Trust me, they're the best in the business. I can help you decide who to go with…if you want…or if you don't like any of them, we can find someone else. And I don't want you to worry about the money; I'll take care of it. It's the…you know, least I can do."

She still couldn't bring herself to speak, and he continued. "But really, I'm not even sure you're going to need them. I thought about it on the way over. The Vice President isn't going to want to pursue this, not if he knows what's good for him. I don't know what he did to make you do whatever you did, but I'm guessing he doesn't want the voters to know, either. He can't force the prosecutor to drop the charges, but I think pressure from the Vice President, who also happens to be the quote-unquote 'victim', should be enough to make it go away. I left Will Bailey a voicemail and told him all that, just in case his brilliant campaign strategist's mind hadn't come up with it on its own, so maybe he can get it through Russell's thick skull." He paused and stared at her. "Donna, say something."

"I thought you were dead!" she blurted out.

He looked startled. "They didn't…no one told you they found the plane?"

"Getting news from a jail cell is apparently a little more difficult than one might imagine."

"Oh God, I'm sorry. Yeah. We were rescued a little before midnight. Ronna had to have surgery, but it sounds like she's going to be okay. So is everyone else."

She walked over to him and put her hands through the bars, touching his arms. Then she reached up and gently ran her fingers over the bump on his head. "You're hurt."

"Nothing that won't heal."

"Josh…" her voice shook, and the tears started to spill from her eyes once again.

"Hey. It's okay." He reached through the bars and rubbed her shoulder. "Everything's going to be okay."

"No, it's not. I'm so…I'm so sorry for everything."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for."

"Yes, I do. You don't-" her voice broke off. "I'm sorry for the way I left my job, Josh. It was horrible and inexcusable, and I can't believe I did it. And all the mean things I said to you…the 'Dr. Seuss nightmare' crack…I'm so sorry." She wasn't ready to confess the other thing yet, but at least she'd gotten that much off her chest.

He touched her arm gently. She was startled to see the tears that had welled in his brown eyes. "It's okay. I deserved it."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did." His voice caught slightly.

"No, you didn't," she insisted again, more forcefully this time.

He sighed. "I'm sorry too, Donna. I should never have canceled those lunches. I should have…well, I should have done a lot of things differently."

"Hey, time's almost up, guys!" the guard called from the end of the hall.

Donna's eyes met Josh's, and for a second she felt the heaviness and emotion of the moment lift as they both smiled.

"So how'd you do it?" she asked.

"Do what?"

"Get them to let you in here to visit me."

"It's amazing how people listen to you when you tell them you have the diplomatic rank of a three-star general."

"You have the diplomatic rank of a three-star general?"

"I don't know. People seem to believe me when I say it, though." He smirked. "I may have thrown in something about having President Bartlet's private line on speed dial, too, just for good measure."

She shook her head. "You're really something, you know that?"

"I do, actually."

She gazed tenderly at him, feeling her heart rate increase as his fingers brushed hers between the bars of the jail cell. She knew they still had a lot to talk about, and she had no idea how she was going to tell him what she'd done, about her meeting with Peter Burton. But he was alive, and right now that was all that mattered.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks as always to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne…**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Matt Santos stared at the wall in the private waiting room the hospital had provided him, his hand in Helen's. Peter and Miranda were sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, working on puzzles to pass the time.

He'd been discharged from the hospital a few hours ago, a bandage wrapped around his badly sprained wrist. He'd gone to see Ronna, and then had tried to find Josh. All he'd been able to get out of the receptionist was that Josh wasn't a patient of the hospital. He must have been discharged, Matt assumed, but now his campaign manager was nowhere to be found. He'd called Josh's cell phone a few times, but it had gone straight to voicemail.

Matt was still overwhelmed by the events of the past 24 hours. Shortly after he'd been admitted to the hospital, the television in the corner of his room had confirmed his darkest suspicions: the plane had been sabotaged. A delusional fringe candidate for President had somehow thought bringing down the airplane would advance his own aspirations.

_Jesus_. Matt closed his eyes. He'd meant what he'd told Josh earlier; he had gotten in the race to win. But he wasn't sure he'd fully absorbed the potential seriousness of the risks until now. It was one thing to understand on an intellectual level that political violence was a reality. That awareness was unavoidable in the current climate; in just the past six years, there had been Rosslyn, Zoey Bartlet's kidnapping, and the terrorist attack in Gaza. And of course Matt had worried about it sometimes, but he'd never actually believed it would happen to him. Certainly not at this point in the election, when no one thought he had a shot to win anyway. And it hadn't just happened to him; five people who had devoted themselves full-time to getting him elected had nearly been killed as a result. Ned, Lucy, and Andrew had all been on his staff for more than a year. Ronna had started as an intern in his office her senior year of college, during his first term, and had been with him ever since. And Josh had left one of the highest positions of power in DC to run his campaign. They'd all put their careers on the line to help him win, but had they known they'd also be risking their lives?

Josh probably had, Matt realized with a pang. It wasn't the first time his work in politics had nearly cost him his life. Matt closed his eyes, remembering the night of the Rosslyn shooting. He'd been speaking at a small rally in Houston, during his first campaign for Congress, when his chief of staff had walked across the stage and handed him a piece of paper. He remembered a voice that hadn't quite sounded like his own announcing that he'd just gotten word the President had been shot, and the cries of horror from the crowd. He and his campaign staff had soon learned to their relief that President Bartlet's injuries were not life-threatening – but that his deputy chief of staff was in critical condition.

Matt shivered, his gaze turning to Peter and Miranda. What if Peter hadn't had the sniffles and Helen had decided to come with him on the flight? What if she'd brought the kids? Their smaller bodies might not have survived the hours in the cold. A new sense of horror filled him as he realized how easily he could have lost both of them.

"Are you okay?" Helen asked, rubbing his hand.

"I don't know," he sighed. "Maybe…maybe you were right. Maybe it was a stupid idea, getting in this race."

"You're saying that because that lunatic sabotaged the plane?"

"You were almost on that flight. Peter and Miranda…"

"But we weren't."

"But you could have been." He let out a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was a mixture of fear and anger. "It's one thing to target me. I always knew that was a danger, ever since I first decided to run for city council. But apparently the terrorists and assassins don't just go after politicians anymore; now their staff is fair game. Now their families are, too. First it was Zoey Bartlet. Now this."

"I'm actually not okay with them targeting you, either."

He met her eyes for several moments before asking quietly, "Do you want me to quit?"

She sighed. "Matt, honey…" She was quiet for a minute. "If you're asking because you've realized politics is a disgusting business and you want no part of it, the answer is yes. But if it's because of what this wacko did…you can't give him that power."

"He's dead. He wouldn't know he's been given any power."

"The next homicidal maniac thinking of targeting a politician will."

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. Finally he sighed. "Yeah. I know you're right. It's just…" His voice trailed off.

"If it'll make you feel better, the President called earlier. In light of the plane being sabotaged, he offered Secret Service protection."

Matt was quiet for a long moment, and then nodded grimly. "I think that's a good idea."

She nodded. "We'll be okay, Matt. All of us."

He sighed. "I don't know how President Bartlet did it, taking back his office and going on after what happened to Zoey."

"He did it because when you're President, you don't have a choice. You have to go on, no matter what." She paused and smiled. "And you will too, when you're President."

"When?" He turned to her with a raised eyebrow, smiling slightly.

"Hey, with Josh Lyman's 9-point plan, how can we lose?"

"Speaking of Josh…" Matt's mind turned back to his campaign manager. Where the hell was he? It seemed entirely unlike him to just disappear like this.

"Hey, congressman." His thoughts were interrupted when Leo McGarry opened the door and walked into the room.

"Mr. McGarry." Matt stood to greet the former White House Chief of Staff.

"Call me Leo." He paused and studied Matt. "How's your wrist?"

"It's fine. Not broken; just a sprain."

"Bet it still hurts like hell."

"A little bit."

"So anyway…" Leo paused. "I guess you probably heard that Josh checked himself out of the hospital."

"Yeah. Where-" Matt's voice broke off. "Wait. What do you mean 'checked _himself_ out?'"

"It's a long story."

Matt's eyes narrowed. "I have time."

Leo sighed. "He checked himself out of the hospital against medical advice because Donna Moss was arrested over that incident with the Vice President. He went down to the jail to try and help her."

"I don't understand." Matt was dumbfounded. He'd caught something on the news about someone on Russell's staff being arrested after a minor altercation with the VP, but why would Josh be involving himself in that? "What exactly did he think he'd be able to do about it, anyway?" he puzzled out loud.

"I'm not sure he'd quite worked that out yet."

"He's not thinking straight," Matt concluded, his forehead creasing in worry. "He has a concussion. Someone needs to find him."

"He's fine. He knows what he's doing."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know Josh. And believe me when I tell you that when it comes to Donna Moss, Josh doesn't need a bump on the head to act a little bit crazy."

Donna Moss. It took a second for Matt to place that name. "She was the one who survived the attack on the CODEL last spring."

"Yeah. Do you remember hearing how Josh left DC to go be with her in Germany?"

"Sort of." Like everyone else in the House of Representatives, Matt had been too stunned by the murder of two of his colleagues to take much notice of the endless cable chit-chat and tangential stories that had swirled around the incident, but he did have some memory of the speculation about why the White House, in the midst of a massive international crisis, would send one of its top advisors to Germany for an indeterminate length of time. The rumors had ranged from the obvious theories about a romantic liaison to Donna's injuries being a cover story for some kind of secret diplomatic mission. Matt had always made a concerted effort to ignore the DC rumor mill, and he hadn't thought much about the story at the time, but now he suddenly found himself wondering if that first theory had actually been true. "So he and Donna…"

"Nothing ever happened between them," Leo quickly clarified. "He was her boss. It would have been unethical. And Josh is a professional, and supremely loyal; he never would have risked embarrassing the President with that kind of scandal." He paused. "But don't think both of them didn't want it."

Matt found himself remembering what Josh had said in the woods about the woman who had left him. "So what happened? I mean, obviously she isn't working for him anymore."

"I don't know exactly what happened," Leo's voice became slightly pensive. "I never really asked him; I guess maybe I should have. I know she quit, pretty abruptly I guess, and went to work for Russell." He paused. "Don't ever tell him I said this, but the truth was I was happy when he told me Donna quit. I figured that would be just the impetus he'd need to get out there and find the Democratic Party another choice besides Russell and Hoynes in this election. I guess that worked out pretty well." He smiled at the congressman.

"Yeah, if we can ever get out of the single digits."

"Oh, I have a feeling those single-digit poll numbers are about to be a distant memory." He paused. "There must be at least fifty different news crews waiting at the hospital entrance for a statement from you, and I'm under strict instructions to make sure you get in front of them early and often."

"But Josh-"

"Josh will kick your ass, and probably mine too, if he doesn't see your face every time he turns on a television today. Go, congressman."

"Now?"

"Yes."

Matt hesitated a moment, then nodded. Helen got up and wrapped an arm around his waist, and Peter and Miranda followed her. They headed out the door and toward the hospital exit, preparing to face the news cameras.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Josh and Donna sat on a bench outside the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids. His arm was draped loosely around her and he was gently rubbing her shoulder, bringing back memories of her only other near-brush with the law, and another bench, that one in a park in DC.

The hearing had been short and to the point. She'd been charged with assaulting the Vice President, and on the advice of the attorney Josh had helped her choose, she'd pleaded not guilty. Bail had been set, which Josh had insisted on paying. She'd tried to talk him out of it. She was hardly rich, but she could have come up with the money. But Josh had maintained that it would have been more of a hardship for her than it would be for him to be without the funds until the legal proceedings were over. And it wasn't like she was planning on skipping bail; he'd get the money back. So she'd reluctantly agreed.

"So what happened?" Josh finally asked quietly, glancing at her.

"You saw the news," she answered flatly.

"Yeah, I did. I'm asking you."

"The Vice President is a jerk. That's what happened."

She felt Josh's muscles tense. "What did he do?"

"He…" she paused. "We had an argument."

"What kind of argument?"

She closed her eyes. She couldn't bring herself to tell Josh the truth, that she was partly responsible for the ordeal he'd just been through. She wasn't willing to jeopardize the warmth and tenderness that was already rebuilding between them. Not today, anyway.

"He just showed himself to be the calculating, uncaring son of a bitch he is. And I called him out on it, and tried to leave the room, and then he grabbed my arm."

"He grabbed your arm?" Anger tinged Josh's voice.

"…and then I pushed him away, and he fell into the table, and that's when the Secret Service walked into the room."

Josh's arm tightened around her, and she heard him let out a long breath. "So that's all…that happened?" he ventured after a moment.

"Yeah," she answered, probably a little too quickly. She wasn't quite sure what he was getting at. "He lied about it, too, you know," she added. "Flat out lied to the Secret Service. He denied grabbing me."

"How we ever ended up with that loser as Vice President…"

"I was so stupid. I can't believe I ever went to work for him. I tried to make him President, can you believe that?"

"Hey, you had no way of knowing what he was like."

"I had every way of knowing. I saw what he did to the President after the MS attack. I can't believe I went to work for him after that."

"Yeah, well you would never have taken that job in the first place if I…" his voice broke off for a moment. "I'm really sorry, Donna. I'm sorry for making your job so miserable you had to quit. I'm sorry…well, I'm just sorry for everything."

"You didn't make my job miserable. My job _wasn't_ miserable. I didn't mean to leave the way I did, Josh. I meant to talk things over with you. That's why I wanted to have that lunch. And it wasn't really fair of me to get mad about it being canceled. I mean, my God, the day I quit, the President had just had his MS attack, we thought there might be a meteor headed for earth…now that I think about it, it sounds like one of those really bad end-of-the-world movies. Of course our lunch went by the wayside. I can't believe I lost my temper over it. I can't believe I just up and quit on you, on _that_ day of all days."

"Yeah, but I'd putting off that lunch for two weeks. I feel awful about that. I know I ignored you. I was just…I guess I just got distracted. I was trying to figure out how much longer _I_ was going to be staying at the White House. Leo told me I should be trying to recruit a strong Democrat, and as much as I kind of liked the sound of that idea, I didn't know if I could leave the President. But the alternative was that either a Republican or else Hoynes or Russell would be our next President, and I just couldn't sit around and watch that happen…plus to top it off we had Penn and Teller burning flags in the White House, and Arnold Vinick announcing for President…I mean, it was just insane all around those last couple weeks." he sighed. "But that's not an excuse." He paused and smiled affectionately at her. "Don't think I didn't notice how great you were on the Russell campaign. You're really good at this stuff."

Despite herself, a smile formed across her face. "I am, aren't I?"

"And so modest, too," Josh teased.

"This coming from the guy who demands muffin and bagel service whenever he completes a successful phone call."

Their eyes met, and they both smiled. Then Josh's face turned more serious.

"I know I should have given you a promotion," he said softly. "When you said you wanted more responsibility, I thought you meant in the job you already had…I guess because the idea of not having you around was so unthinkable that I just didn't…I should have paid more attention. Instead of sending you to that awful…" his voice broke off. "I should have found you a new job. A better job. You'd earned it."

"I didn't tell you what I wanted, not really. To be honest, I didn't even really know what I wanted. When Annabeth mentioned that if I did a TV movie about Gaza, I'd have to quit my job, I dismissed the idea out of hand. And that was only about a month or so before I _did_ quit. I was confused, too. And it was so soon after what happened. I guess…I thought I was seeing things clearly, but I guess maybe I wasn't."

Josh didn't say anything right away. Instead, he just gazed at her.

"What?" she asked after a moment.

"There's something I think I need to tell you."

"What is it?"

He was quiet for a moment. "When the plane was going down, and…you know, I thought it might…be the end…God, this sounds cliché," he sighed. "I thought about things. My mom, and Joanie…"

"Oh, Josh." She took his hand.

"And you. I thought…I mean, I realized…I wished I had told you. That I loved you." He nearly choked out those last words, but she still heard them clearly. Her heart leapt into her throat.

You…you mean, like you'd love a best friend?" She wanted to be completely sure she hadn't misunderstood him.

"No." Josh's eyes met hers. "I've loved you for…for a long time. And I wanted to tell you, especially after...Gaza. But I was your boss, and it would have been...I mean, the last thing you needed was me messing up your job right in the middle of your recovery. Or maybe I was just scared to tell you, I don't know. Probably a little of both. But now…I just want you to know how I feel. And it's okay if you don't feel the same way. I don't expect you to; I know you're with Colin, and I'm not trying to ruin that for you. Although I can't help but notice that Blarney Boy isn't exactly here in your hour of need…"

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She supposed the sound that came out of her mouth was a combination of both. Then she leaned in against him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I've loved you for the past eight years."

"You…have?"

"Yes. And I'm not with Colin anymore."

"You're not?"

"No. I broke up with him before I left Germany."

"You did?" Josh's face registered a flicker of embarrassment at how inarticulate he was being.

Donna smiled and pulled his face toward hers, kissing him. She closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his lips on hers. For the moment, at least, everything else seemed to fade away.

When the kiss finally ended, she buried her head against Josh's shoulder. She felt his arms around her, his hand rubbing her back. It felt so amazingly good that she could almost forget the secret she was still keeping from him. Almost.

"You know, I thought my job for the Vice President was such a big deal," she sighed. "I thought it meant I was finally going places. But you know what? I was serving my country with you at the White House. I was working for a great President, to try to get good things done. I don't know how I could ever have thought that was worth less than a job working…well, working for Bingo Bob." She chuckled shortly. "Not that it matters. I suppose I can pretty well assume I'm fired from the Russell campaign, not that I'd ever want to go back there anyway."

"Well, my offer still stands," Josh told her, gently tousling her hair. "There's plenty of room for you on the Santos campaign. I know it doesn't pay much, and it isn't all that glamorous, and I can't even promise that the job will be around in another month, but I really think he's the real thing."

"You can't hire me now," Donna said dejectedly. "Not after what I did. Do you want to make it look like the congressman condones physical assaults on his opponents? I mean, you probably shouldn't even be here-" suddenly her eyes widened in alarm, and she pulled back from him. "You _shouldn't_ be here. Oh my God, Josh, what about the press? They must have seen you." There hadn't been as much media in the courthouse as there normally would have been; with the Santos plane having just been found, the level of interest in a campaign staffer who had pushed the Vice President hadn't been all that high. All of the high-ranking news personalities were at the hospital. Josh and Donna had gone out the back entrance of the courthouse to avoid the few junior reporters they'd recognized. But if any of the reporters had noticed Josh, his presence there could suddenly turn the whole thing into a much bigger story.

"So?" Josh shrugged off her worry.

"So? Josh, you can't let this turn into a thing. You have to get out of here. Now. Get back to the campaign, and if anyone asks, put out a statement saying you were just here to offer some personal comfort to an old friend."

"Donna, the congressman's a hero today. He's going to be up at least 20 points in the polls by Wednesday. No one cares what his campaign manager is doing right now."

"You really want to bet on that?" She shook her head. "Go, Josh. You have to leave. I'm serious. You can't be seen with me."

"And what about you? Where are you going to go?"

"I'll…" She suddenly realized she was at a loss. The hotel room she had been staying in was paid for by the Russell campaign; obviously she couldn't go back there. And every other hotel in the area was booked because of the Corn Growers' Expo. "I guess I'll…"

"Come with me," Josh offered. "You can stay with the campaign…with me…for a few days. Or however long you need to."

"I can't, Josh-"

"Sure you can." A hint of a smile formed on his face. "If anyone asks, I'm offering personal comfort to an old friend." Suddenly his face started to flush. "I mean…not that…you'd have your own hotel room. If…you know…you…wanted one…"

She couldn't resist laughing. Then she put a hand on his cheek and turned his face toward hers. "I don't want my own hotel room," she told him meaningfully.

His eyes gleamed. "That works, too."

She smiled and watched as he dug his phone out of his pocket. He'd turned it off during the court proceedings, and when he turned it back on, Donna could see that he had a number of voicemails.

"The congressman," Josh explained. "I told Leo to tell him where I was, but I'd better call him and check in. Make sure he's out of the hospital and back at the hotel."

Donna nodded, leaning her head contentedly against him as he dialed. Things were far from resolved. She was still jobless, and in legal trouble. But right then, all she could feel was a deep sense of joy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks as always to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne.**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Sir, please try to help me understand what happened," Will said tiredly to the Vice President. He was sitting in an overstuffed chair in Russell's suite. The campaign was getting ready to check out of the hotel and head to the next event. Will was exhausted; he hadn't slept at all the previous night. Nothing made sense. Donna had been arrested, for reasons he still didn't understand. As soon as Donna had been escorted away, Russell had announced that he was going to bed and ordered Will not to discuss the incident with anyone. Mindful of those instructions, Will had turned off his phone overnight, and by morning he'd had a slew of voicemails from virtually every news network, as well as from Josh and Leo. He'd passed on Josh's message to the VP; Josh was right; the best thing politically for the Vice President to do was to drop the charges. Will was sure it was the best thing morally, too. Whatever had happened, he was certain Donna didn't deserve to have her life ruined over this incident.

The incident with Donna wasn't the only thing that had kept Will awake; the unfolding drama of the missing airplane had also made sleep impossible. The initial celebratory reports that the plane had been found and all of the passengers were alive had soon been tempered when the reporters had learned that two passengers were missing. Josh and the congressman had gone out in search of help hours ago, and no one had seen or heard from them since; clearly, they'd never made it to the road they'd been heading for. Will had sat in front of the television, watching footage of searchers combing the woods with a knot in his stomach until it was finally reported that Josh and Matt had been found, injured but alive.

"Donna Moss is a nutcase, that's what happened. Great hiring job there, Bailey," Russell answered Will's question sharply.

"She's not a…nutcase. She has no reputation for erratic behavior," Will stammered, defending Donna, and himself.

"Well, she's never had a job like this before, has she? She was, what, a receptionist or something before you hired her?"

"A senior assistant in the West Wing."

"Whatever. She answered phones for a living. A far cry from doing work like this. Obviously the stress was too much for her."

"It wasn't the stress of the job, sir. Josh Lyman was in that plane crash. She was worried about him."

"They were friends at the White House?"

Will stared at him in astonishment. The Vice President really was oblivious to the people around him, at least people whom he didn't view as being in a position to benefit him. Apparently an assistant in the West Wing didn't merit so much as a blip on his radar. "She was his assistant for seven years! They were…" Will wondered how much about their relationship he should reveal. "Yeah. They were close."

"Oh." The Vice President looked only slightly chastened. "Well, I sympathize, of course, but it still doesn't excuse her egregiously unprofessional behavior. I can't have people on my staff who don't have control over their emotions."

"Sir-"

"If she was so upset, why didn't she take a break from the campaign trail?"

"I tried to get her to, sir."

"And the whole thing's a bit of a conflict of interest, don't you think? Someone on our staff being all cozy with our opponent's campaign manager?"

"Santos wasn't even running when I hired Donna. And anyway-"

"Well, the second he announced his campaign, I should have been made aware of the situation."

"The situation-" Will stared at the Vice President, perplexed. "Sir, due respect, but we're talking about Matt Santos here. Since when do you consider _him_ a threat?"

"I don't."

"You do." The realization dawned on Will. "That's why you had me dig up dirt on him and leak the Mayflower quote. It wasn't because you thought the Santos campaign might siphon off a few of our votes. That doesn't even make sense. He'd be more likely to split Hoynes's vote than ours; he represents another option for people wanting to vote for someone other than the default front-runner. The Santos campaign probably actually helps us. Unless…all those comments about what a joke his campaign is…were crap, weren't they? You're actually worried that Santos could win."

"I don't know." Russell's jaw twitched. "I worked with him in the House. He's charismatic, I can tell you that. And he's smart, and people underestimate him at their peril. And with Josh Lyman running his campaign…let's just say I wanted to nip this thing in the bud."

"And that's why you were so upset about the news coverage of the plane crash."

"Damn right it was! It's exactly what he needed to catapult him into a serious contender for the nomination. God, did you see the media fawning over him at his press conference this morning? It was disgusting."

"Right." Will closed his eyes momentarily. "But I still don't understand what happened with Donna."

"She went crazy. She saw that whackjob who sabotaged the plane on CNN, and I guess he was one of the fringe candidates she'd gone to meet with yesterday morning…"

"Oh my God." Will felt his heart drop. He couldn't believe he hadn't put it together until now. Burton's name had sounded familiar to him, but somehow he hadn't made the connection. He'd been distracted by the situation with Donna, and then consumed by the news about the airplane, and he just hadn't given much thought to the man who'd confessed to sabotaging it.

Russell continued. "She was convinced he'd sabotaged the plane because she'd visited him, and when I wouldn't share in that particular delusion of hers, she lost it and started screaming at me."

"God, poor Donna. I should never have…" Will's voice trailed off, his face stricken.

"Poor Donna? Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Sir, maybe you could have tried to be a little more sensitive with her."

"I'm the Vice President. I'm not going to be constantly watching my tongue to avoid hurting the feelings of oversensitive campaign staffers. I have more important things worry about. Anyone who doesn't like working for me, there's the door." He gestured toward the door of the hotel suite.

Will closed his eyes. "So then what happened?"

"She shoved me into a table."

"She told the Secret Service agent at the scene that you grabbed her arm and she was pushing you away." The agent had been pretty tight-lipped when Will had started peppering him with questions, but he'd ended up giving him at least that much information.

"I didn't…I may have _touched_ her arm. For heaven's sake, I didn't 'grab' it."

The admission hit Will like a punch in the gut. "You lied to the Secret Service. You said she pushed you, unprovoked."

"Oh please. Look, I'm not going to get dragged into a whole thing in the media about whether I touched her arm, or grabbed it, or tried to tear it from her torso, or whatever she's going to be claiming by the time this thing is over. She pushed me; that's what matters. I'm the Vice President of the United States, and she pushed me into a table. You don't get to do that."

"It's a federal offense to make false statements to the Secret Service."

"It's her word against mine. Who are people going to believe?"

"I don't know, but if the Republican Congress chooses to believe her, you could be impeached. Or forced to resign. Two Vice Presidents leaving office in disgrace in less than four years. Forget your campaign; do you have any idea what that would do to the Democratic Party? Or to President Bartlet's legacy?" _Do you even care?_ Will found himself wondering. Actually, no. He didn't wonder.

Bob Russell stared daggers at him. "President Bartlet's legacy is not my concern, nor is it yours. You work for me."

"Not anymore I don't."

"Excuse me?"

"I quit."

Russell sighed. "Come on, Will, I didn't mean it that way. Of course I care about the President. I just meant…"

"I know exactly what you meant." His voice rose as he stared at his boss – his former boss. Any illusions he'd had about the Vice President were suddenly stripped away. The man was someone who was capable of not feeling the slightest twinge of remorse that his campaign had messed with the head of a lunatic hours before he'd tried to kill six people. He was a man who'd lied without a second thought to protect himself, even if it meant sending someone like Donna to jail.

He should have listened to his intuition, Will realized. He'd felt uncomfortable from the start about taking the job with the Vice President. The very manner in which Russell had approached him about the position should have been a clue that something was wrong. What did it say about Russell's character that one of his first actions as Vice President had been to poach from the staff of the man who'd elevated him into that position? But Will had allowed himself to be flattered by the praise Russell had heaped on him, and the possibility of having a top position – maybe even chief of staff – in the next administration had been undeniably seductive. He'd still been feeling dizzy and disoriented from his recent promotion into Sam Seaborn's old job, and he'd convinced himself that this was just how things were done, that they were all on the same team and it didn't matter whether he reported to the Vice President or the President (or rather, to a guy who reported to a guy who reported to the President), that Toby was just being his usual grumpy, inflexible self when he'd lectured Will about the move. President Bartlet wouldn't have chosen Russell if he weren't worthy, Will had figured, deliberately ignoring the less-than-ideal circumstances under which the choice had been made.

When Russell had admitted what he and his wife had done to Ellie Bartlet, Will had begun to get a picture of the real Bob Russell. But by then it had seemed too late to do anything about it. He'd made his choice, and he'd stood by it, trying not to think too hard about what kind of man he was really working for.

Will continued speaking, his voice shaking. "It was a mistake for me to ever take this job. I should have corrected that mistake a long time ago, but I'm correcting it now. You're not fit to be Vice President, and you're certainly not fit to be President. I can no longer in good conscience try to get you into that office. Sir."

Russell clenched and unclenched his jaw, his arms folded tightly. "You're finished in this town, Bailey. I'll see to that."

"Whatever." Will began to walk toward the door, but then turned around. "Tell the prosecutor to drop the charges against Donna, Mr. Vice President. It's in your own best interest and you know it." He then continued out the door, not looking back.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You're insane, you know that?" Matt Santos blurted out as soon as Josh and Donna walked into his hotel suite. Leo stood a few feet away from the congressman.

"I think that's probably been public knowledge for quite a few years."

"I'm not kidding, Josh! Those doctors didn't spend eight years in medical school for nothing. What the hell were you thinking?"

"Wait," Donna interjected, glancing from Josh to the congressman. "What are you talking about?"

"He left the hospital against medical advice."

Donna's heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"Thanks for ratting me out," Josh muttered to Matt.

"_Josh__!_" Donna practically shrieked.

"It's fine, Donna. It's nothing to worry about."

"Why on Earth would you do something like that?"

"I had to. I couldn't-" his voice broke off, as if he was mentally editing what he'd been about to say. "You know, lying around in a hospital bed has never been my strong suit. I'm a man of action."

"Because of me?" Donna stared at him as the realization dawned. "You left the hospital to go see me in jail? That was it, wasn't it?"

"Something…like that." He looked at the ground.

"Oh, Josh…" she felt her eyes misting over once again. She was torn between being deeply moved by the gesture, and terrified for him. "You have to go back to the hospital. Now."

"Donna-"

"You could still have something wrong with you. Your heart – they wanted to keep monitoring your heart, didn't they? Is that why they hadn't released you?"

"You know doctors. They just want to cover their asses against malpractice suits."

"Yes, by keeping you alive! I'm taking you back to the hospital right now." She grabbed his arm and nudged him toward the door.

"I'm fine, Donna. I'll make a doctor's appointment for tomorrow just to be sure."

"Josh, what if-"

"I kind of have a lot of work to do. I still have a campaign to run here, in case everyone's forgotten."

"Your work can wait."

"Donna…"

"You listen to me, Joshua Lyman, as someone who thought you were dead a few hours ago, if you think I'm going to let you take crazy chances with your health for no good reason other than your own stubborn pride…" her voice started quavering.

His face softened. "Okay."

"Okay? You'll go?"

"Yeah."

"Good." She let out a breath. "And if you ever pull a stunt like that again…"

"Just don't get yourself arrested next time I'm in the hospital, and we should be fine."

"Shut up."

Matt interrupted their conversation, turning to Donna. "So you must be…"

"I'm sorry." Josh realized he'd forgotten to make introductions. "Congressman, this is Donna Moss."

"The crazy person arrested for pushing the Vice President," she clarified with a grimace.

"Russell had it coming," Josh interjected.

"I don't have any trouble believing that," Matt responded. He shook Donna's hand. "I'm Matt Santos."

"Good to meet you." She paused. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Thanks."

"The congressman was great on TV, by the way," Leo told Josh.

"I didn't exactly have a chance to catch it, but that's what I've heard. Sorry for taking off on you like that, congressman. I just had to…" his voice broke off, and he turned to look at Donna. Their eyes met, and for a second they both forgot there was anyone else in the room.

"Yeah. Leo explained it." There was a note of amusement in Matt's voice.

"How's Ronna doing?" Josh asked.

"Better. They're hoping she might be able to go home by the end of the week."

"Thank God," Josh sighed.

"And the lady's right, Josh," Matt added with a glance at Donna. "Go get yourself checked out. I don't want to see you back in this hotel until you've had a clean bill of health."

"I'll second that," Leo added.

"Every one of you is my mother," Josh grumbled.

"You want me to call her? I bet she'd tell you the same thing," Leo told him pointedly.

"Yeah, yeah, you don't have to threaten me. I'm going," Josh muttered. Donna put a hand on his arm, and they headed together toward the door.


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks as always to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne.**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I told you I was fine," Josh commented with a note of smugness as he and Donna walked down the hall. He'd been examined by a doctor and been given an EKG before being cleared to leave. Then they'd stopped by Ronna's room and found her groggy but otherwise recovering well from her surgery. Now they were getting ready to go back to the hotel.

"Yes, how foolish of me, thinking that just because you'd stormed out of the hospital against the doctors' advice, it might be a good idea to get checked out."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Uh oh." Donna stopped short as they arrived at the front entrance to the hospital. Through the glass doors, they could see a multitude of news vans. Donna had brought Josh in through the Emergency Department entrance, so they'd gone undetected. But apparently they weren't going to be that lucky twice. Several reporters had obviously already spotted them together through the doors.

"What do we do?" Donna asked.

Josh shrugged. "Face them, I suppose."

"We could try to find a back door to sneak out of."

"No." He shook his head. "It'd just prolong the inevitable."

"What do you want to tell them?"

He met her eyes for a moment. There was only one possible answer. "The truth."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I don't really think keeping this a secret would work out very well for anyone in the long run, do you?"

She thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "No."

They walked out the front entrance together.

"Josh, any comment on reports that you were at the courthouse when Donna Moss was arraigned?"

They exchanged glances. Then Josh turned back to the reporter. "Yes, I was there."

"What does the Santos campaign think about-"

"The Santos campaign has nothing to do with any of this. I was there on my own, in a personal capacity. I didn't discuss it with the congressman beforehand. I worked with Donna for seven years in the White House, and she was in trouble. That's why I went."

"Josh, what is your relationship with Donna Moss?"

He looked at her again and took a deep breath. "We're a couple."

That set off a flurry of commotion among the gathered reporters. "How long have you and Donna been in a relationship?'

Josh glanced at his watch. "For a few hours now, I guess."

"Donna," another reporter called out. "Can you tell us anything about what happened last night, when you were arrested?"

She decided to honor her lawyer's insistence that she not talk to the media about the case. "I'm not going to discuss that this time."

"Donna, there's an anonymous source saying it's likely that you'll be making a self-defense case regarding the charges against you. Can you comment?"

She and Josh exchanged surprised glances. She turned to the reporter. "Like I said, I'm not discussing the case."

"Why would it be self-defense? Did the Vice President attack you?"

"Like I said, I'm not going to comment."

"Donna-"

"Josh-"

"No more questions," Josh insisted. He and Donna made their way through the crowd and got into a waiting taxi.

"It's going to be a huge distraction. That little impromptu press conference," Donna observed on the ride back to the hotel.

"Maybe, but it can't be helped," Josh responded with a shrug.

"Do you think it'll hurt the campaign?"

"I hope not, but it is what it is."

She bit her lip and glanced downward. "I'm sorry."

He looked at her in surprise. "For what?"

"For...for everything. For this. I just seem to be causing you nothing but trouble lately, don't I?"

"Not even close." He pulled her face toward his and kissed her lightly. "Do you know how long I've fantasized about being able to introduce you as my girlfriend?"

She smiled, but the knot of guilt in her stomach remained. He didn't know the half of it, she reminded herself.

She changed the subject. "Who do you think their anonymous source is? About the self-defense case?" Self-defense had been the direction her lawyers had been leaning toward in the event the case went to trial, but she hadn't told anyone else about it. "The lawyers wouldn't have…"

"Attorney-client confidentiality. They wouldn't have done that."

She glanced at him sideways. "It wasn't _you_, was it?"

Josh chuckled shortly. "No, although I was almost wishing I'd thought of it. I mean, that reporter just asked you on live television if the Vice President attacked you. If Russell wasn't ready to make all this go away before, he should be now."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I saw you on TV," Matt commented as Josh entered the congressman's hotel suite. Donna had gone straight to Josh's room. Since she wasn't actually a part of the campaign, she'd figured it would be best if she wasn't around for their meetings.

"I know. I'm sorry about that." Josh eased himself into a chair, setting his crutches down beside him. "Well no, actually. I'm not really sorry. But I know it wasn't great for the campaign, and I'll understand if you want me to resign."

Matt looked at him as if he'd grown another head. "I don't want you to resign, Josh. I thought you were great."

"We were getting all this free publicity because of the crash. This just cuts right into that. It changes the story when that's the absolute last thing we want to do. All of a sudden, instead of the rescue and your brilliant press conference, the public sees your crazy campaign manager making a fool of himself."

Matt was quiet for a minute, gazing thoughtfully at Josh. "I'll tell you what the public sees – at least, if they're anything like me. They see someone who had a concussion after a plane crash and still went hiking through the woods in the snow to get help for an injured passenger. They see someone who left the hospital on crutches before dawn to be with a friend who was in trouble. They see him standing by that friend even when it's not politically convenient." There was a new respect on Matt's face as he looked at Josh. "I don't think it'll hurt my image too much to be associated with someone like that."

Josh flushed slightly, touched by the praise. "Thanks."

Matt sat down in a chair across from him. "Josh, look. I know I haven't exactly been the easiest candidate to work with."

Josh shrugged. "Yeah, well I didn't get in this because I thought it'd be easy."

"Helen likes to tell me there's a fine line between standing by my principles and just being a stubborn, egotistical son of a bitch."

Josh smirked. "Frankly, sir, if I didn't think you had the capacity to be a stubborn, egotistical son of a bitch, I never would have wanted you to run."

"That's what it takes, huh?"

"Sometimes, yeah."

Matt let out a breath. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm sure we haven't had the last of our disagreements, but there's no one I'd rather have running this campaign. On a professional level _or_ a personal level. And I wanted you to know that."

"Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me," Josh responded sincerely.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Ned walked in, visibly excited. His voice shook slightly as he spoke. "CNN is out with a flash poll putting the congressman in the lead nationally for the Democratic nomination."

"Don't get too crazed about that," Josh cautioned immediately, reminding himself as much as Ned or the congressman. "Those numbers are soft. People are reacting to the plane crash, that's all. I mean, President Bartlet's approval rating was 76% right after Zoey was kidnapped, and I think we all know how long that lasted."

"How long _did_ it last?" Ned asked earnestly. Josh cringed inwardly. Ned was a nice guy, but he still sometimes seemed out of his depth on the campaign trail.

After an awkward silence, Ned continued. "Also, our internet fundraising is through the roof. We've raised at least three times as much in the last 12 hours as we did during the rest of the campaign combined."

"So about 30 bucks, then?" Josh quipped. But when Ned handed him a sheet of paper with the numbers on it, even he was impressed.

"Anyway," Matt took a deep breath. "It's been a long 24 hours for all of us. Why don't we all get some sleep? We can start fresh in the morning."

Josh nodded in agreement. But as he left the suite and headed for his room, sleep was the last thing on his mind.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Two hours later, Josh and Donna lay contentedly in each other's arms. Donna let out a soft sigh and ran her hand along the lines of his bare chest. Making love to Josh had been something she'd dreamed about for years, and the reality had been even better than the fantasy. The occasional awkwardness that his cast had presented hadn't detracted from the experience in the least. Or at least it wouldn't have, if she'd been able to turn off the voice in her head that kept reminding her that he was in that cast because of her.

He shifted slightly in the bed and met her eyes. "Not too bad for a guy with a broken leg, huh?" he asked, his dimples making an appearance.

"Your leg wasn't the part of your body I was most interested in."

"Oh, really?" Josh raised his eyebrows, his dimples deepening.

She smiled and sat up slightly in the bed. The television, which had been sitting unnoticed on mute for the last few hours, caught her attention. She could see they were talking about Peter Burton. She reached for the remote and turned up the volume.

"…_Police were led to Burton after a surveillance camera that the airfield had, unbeknownst to their employees, recently installed, captured him tampering with the Santos plane shortly before it took off," _the news anchor was saying._ "Authorities believe his death was what's known as 'suicide by cop.' In other words, he pulled out that gun knowing it would force police to shoot him. Burton posted a long, rambling blog entry – he called it a 'manifesto' – on his website shortly before his death. In it, he once again confesses to sabotaging the plane flown by presidential candidate Matthew Santos. He says he'd come up with the plans for how to bring down the airplane weeks ago, but only decided to go through with it that morning, after he claims he was visited by Democratic operatives who urged him to become more visible in the presidential race. The DNC and the state Democratic Party have both issued statements saying they have no knowledge of anyone affiliated with them visiting this man's home."_

"_Of course, it could have been anyone,"_ another anchor chimed in, responding to the report. _"Anyone could have stopped by this man's house claiming to be from the Democratic Party."_

"_Of course. And frankly, we have no reason to believe he didn't just imagine it, or make it up. He was obviously a deeply disturbed individual."_

By the time the report was done, Donna had gotten up and walked to the corner of the room, facing the wall. She felt sick. It was confirmed: Burton had done what he'd done because of her. Josh had nearly died because of her.

She had to tell him. As much as she dreaded the thought of it, she couldn't keep something like this a secret from him. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. But before she could turn around, Josh spoke, commenting on the news report.

"Yeah. Democratic operatives went to that lunatic's house and courted him. Good God." His voice dripped with sarcasm.

Donna's heart dropped. Josh continued. "I mean, why the hell is anyone even dignifying that idiot's ravings with on-the-record denials? Give me a break."

That pushed her over the edge. Tears formed in her eyes and quickly started running down her cheeks. She pressed a hand against her eyes.

"Donna?" She heard Josh's voice behind her again. "Are you okay?"

She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to compose herself. Then she wiped the tears from her face and turned around, slowly walking over to the bed.

Josh's eyes widened when he saw her face. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're crying."

"It's nothing. I'm just tired." She paused and added, "I don't want to talk about it." There was no way she could tell him now. She'd do it later.

"Is it…" he paused, and she saw him swallow hard. "Is it about Russell?"

She blinked in confusion. "What?"

He was quiet for a moment. "You never really told me what he did in that hotel room."

"Yes, I did."

"I mean, before…before he grabbed your arm. What happened? I mean, did he…do anything to you? Or…try to do anything?"

"Oh Josh, no," she reassured him immediately. Was that what he thought had happened? "Russell's a jerk, but he's not…like that. At least not as far as I know."

She could see the relief on his face. "Good." Then he touched her cheek. "So what is it, then?"

"I told you I don't want to talk about it." There was a sharpness in her voice that she hadn't quite intended. The look of hurt that briefly flashed across his face did nothing to alleviate her guilt.

They were both startled by Donna's phone ringing. She took a deep breath and went over to her purse to retrieve it, grateful for the distraction.

A few minutes later she hung up and turned to Josh, her mind swimming. She repeated what the person on the other end of the line had said, nearly verbatim. "Apparently the Vice President wants me to meet with him and his campaign manager first thing tomorrow morning. No lawyers. The guy on the phone said something about wanting to resolve this 'misunderstanding.'"

Josh's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to go?"

"I think I probably should."

"Alone?"

"Will will be there. It should be fine."

"I'm going with you."

"You're sleeping in tomorrow, Josh. The doctor's orders were for you to take it easy for the next few weeks."

"You didn't really think that was going to happen, did you?"

"Josh."

"Donna, if you think I'm going to let you face down that asshole by yourself…" He paused. "It's awfully suspicious that he doesn't want any lawyers there, don't you think?"

"Yes, I do think so, but I still think I'd better go."

"Well, you're not going alone."

She sighed and looked at him for a moment. She knew she wasn't going to be able to talk him out of it, and the truth was she was relieved by the prospect of having him there with her. "Okay."

He reached over and tousled her hair. She lay back on the bed and rested her head against his chest, trying to forget about everything but his nearness.


	12. Chapter 12

**Thanks as always to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When they arrived at a small conference room in the Russell campaign's Iowa headquarters, the first thing Josh noticed was that Will was nowhere in sight. The Vice President was there, along with a middle-aged, balding man who looked familiar, but whom he couldn't quite place.

"Where's Will?" Donna asked, echoing his thoughts.

The middle aged man interrupted their conversation, holding out a shoebox. "Cell phones here. This is an off-the-record meeting. Nothing that could be used as a recording device is allowed."

Josh reluctantly handed over his BlackBerry, which he had indeed set to surreptitiously record the meeting. The man looked at it and snorted. "Nice try, Mr. Lyman." After he had collected all the phones, he put the box in a storage closet outside of the conference room.

"Where's Will?" Donna asked again.

"I fired him," Russell claimed.

"What? When? Why?" Donna demanded.

"You brought her here under false pretenses, then," Josh snapped. "She was told Will Bailey was going to be here."

Russell smiled calmly. "She was told my campaign manager was going to be here. This is my new campaign manager, Harold Saunders. An old friend of mine."

So that was why he looked familiar. His name was more famous than his face, but Harold Saunders was a well-known political operative. He'd worked for a number of shady 527 groups in the past, and was notorious for launching brutal, unfounded, but devastatingly effective smear campaigns that had brought down a number of politicians.

"I know who you are." Josh didn't shake Harold's outstretched hand. "So I guess this is the direction your campaign is going, then," he added to Russell.

Russell was unperturbed. "Will Bailey was great. He's a nice guy – maybe too nice for politics, though. I think Harold will give my campaign the…well, the edge it needs."

"That's one way of putting it."

Russell frowned, his face darkening. "Speaking of false pretenses, Josh, what are _you_ doing here? I don't remember inviting you. And trying to record the conversation? Hoping to do some spying for Matt Santos?"

"Mr. Lyman, I think you should wait outside," Harold interjected.

"Not happening."

"You're from an opposing campaign."

"Either I'm in the room, or we call her lawyers and delay the meeting until they get here. Take your pick."

"It's okay, Harold," Russell interjected. "Actually, Josh probably should be in this meeting. There's something I want to talk to him about."

Harold gave the Vice President a quizzical look, but sighed. "Fine." He paused. "Why don't we all have a seat, and the Vice President will explain why he called this meeting."

Harold and Russell sat on one side of a long, rectangular table, and Josh and Donna sat on the other.

"Donna, listen," Russell began. "Thinking about the incident the other night, it seems to me that maybe all of this has been blown out of proportion. You were tired and emotional. You probably didn't mean to push me."

She stared at him stonily, not responding.

"And I've decided I'm willing to tell the prosecutor that. I'll ask him to drop the charges. And I'll tell the media that, too. That it was just a misunderstanding. You're a nice person. I don't want your life ruined over this."

"What's the catch?" Josh demanded.

"No catch," Russell smiled.

"Just this," Harold interjected. "In order to confirm to our own satisfaction that it really was an accident, we'd like Donna to give this statement in front of news cameras. If it's true, of course," he added as he slid a piece of paper over to her.

Donna read the statement silently, Josh doing the same as he leaned over her shoulder.

"_Two nights ago, I was very tired, and very upset about a good friend of mine, Josh Lyman, who was missing after having been in the Santos plane crash. I ended up having a heated conversation with the Vice President and said some things I didn't mean. I did not intend to push him or physically hurt him in any way. I feel terribly about the incident, and would like to sincerely apologize to-"_

"No way in hell," Donna said sharply.

"Donna-" Josh touched her arm. The thought of her apologizing to Bob Russell made him sick, but if it would mean putting an end to her legal troubles, and even providing her with some political cover as well…

"I'd rather spend the rest of my life in jail than apologize to him," she insisted, a harshness in her voice that surprised him.

"Well, that's your other option," Harold retorted smugly. "Well, okay, probably not life. But an assault on the Vice President? I'd guess you're looking at a few years, at least. You really think you can do that kind of time?"

"I'm offering you an out here, Donna," Russell interjected. "I'd take it if I were you." He took another piece of paper out of a folder. "How this will work is that I'll issue this very gracious statement to the press, accepting your apology, saying that as far as I'm concerned the matter is settled, and calling on the prosecutor to drop the charges." The Vice President handed Donna another piece of paper. She didn't even look at it.

"Maybe she should just file charges against _you_," Josh snapped in annoyance. "She could, you know. You grabbed her arm. You were trying to stop her from leaving the room. That sounds like false imprisonment to me. You lied to the Secret Service. Ever hear of obstruction of justice?"

"Oh, knock it off," Russell snorted in irritation. "She's not going to do anything to me, and you wouldn't want her to." He gave Josh a meaningful look that Josh didn't quite understand. "You may not want me to be President, but you don't want my career destroyed, either."

"Wanna bet?"

Russell's eyes flashed. "If I go down, President Bartlet goes down with me. I really don't think that's what you want, is it, Josh?"

Josh glared at him. "Using the President as a human shield – I never thought even you would stoop that low."

Russell shrugged. "It's just a simple statement of fact."

"We serve at the pleasure of the President – and the second we become a liability to him, we step aside."

"No, _you_ serve at the pleasure of the President – or at least you did until you went trotting off on your wild and crazy adventure with Matt Santos. The Vice President doesn't serve at the pleasure of anyone but himself."

"He plucked you out of obscurity. He made you Vice President of the United States, and this is how you repay him?"

"From what I understand, I have the Republican Speaker of the House to thank for my nomination, not any of you in the White House."

"You disgust me."

"Well, that just breaks my heart, Josh."

Josh shook his head. "Say what you want about Hoynes, but when he got in trouble, he took himself out of the equation rather than hurt the President."

"And the President wouldn't survive another VP resigning over a scandal. You know that as well as I do."

"Just say you want to spend more time with your grandkids."

Russell met his eyes. "Or what?"

Josh blinked in confusion. What exactly were they talking about here? His comments about Donna pressing charges against the VP had been a reflexive response to the attempt to intimidate her. He hadn't meant it as a serious threat, although if the case were to go to trial those issues would probably come up, and the Vice President knew it.

Russell's voice didn't quite mask an edge of nervousness as he spoke. "Let's just cut to the chase, Josh. If you think you're going to help Matt Santos by telling the media about Donna's meeting that morning, you're wrong. Greg and Christine will say it was just opposition research. The guy was going to be on the ballot. We wouldn't have been doing our jobs if we hadn't tried to find out who he was."

"What?" Josh stared at him, dumbfounded. He glanced at Donna, who had suddenly turned white as a sheet.

"By the time we get through with her, your little girlfriend here will look like a crazy, disloyal ex-employee who no politician will ever trust to have on staff again. And I'll look like a victim. You don't think I can manage to spin it that way? Harold's made a career out of that kind of thing."

"What the hell are you-"

"So yeah. Go tell the press all about her meeting with Peter Burton. I almost hope you do. We'll see who comes out ahead."

"Her meeting with…" Josh's voice trailed off as some of the pieces started to fall into place. He remembered the news report about the Democrats who had supposedly met with Burton, and how Donna had reacted after hearing it. He glanced at her again. She looked stricken.

"She didn't tell you." The realization dawned on Russell. He glanced from Josh to Donna, clearly suddenly afraid he'd made a huge mistake by spilling the beans. "Well, I'm sure she would have gotten around to it eventually."

Harold, who had been staring at Russell with an expression that plainly indicated he hadn't expected the conversation to take this particular turn, recovered and looked at Donna. "Issue the apology. Make this go away. Your life is going to be ruined if you don't."

She got up sharply from the table, shaking visibly. "This meeting is over."

"Donna-" Josh called after her, but she didn't turn around. She stalked out of the room without waiting for him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Thanks as always to my betas, HarmonyLover and chai4anne.**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Donna!"

She heard Josh's voice calling her, but didn't turn around. She was sitting on a bench outside the building, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Donna." He said her name more softly, approaching and sitting down beside her, resting his crutches against the side of the bench.

After several moments of heavy silence between them, she spoke.

"The Vice President wanted to stack the debate with loony fringe candidates. The idea was that it would marginalize Hoynes, and make Russell look more presidential. I went to Peter Burton's house that morning. I showered all kinds of flattery on him. I told him he…he needed to make his voice heard." her throat tightened. "That was why he sabotaged the plane."

Josh put an arm around her shoulders, and she felt him draw in a deep breath. "Oh, Donna. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know. I mean, what's the best way to tell someone that you're the reason they and five of their friends almost died?"

Josh pulled her closer. "There was absolutely no way you could have known what he was going to do."

"I knew he was a lunatic! I knew it probably wasn't a good idea to be putting crazy ideas about being President into the mind of someone like that."

"You knew he was crazy. Not homicidal."

"That doesn't change the fact that he did what he did because of me."

"Donna-"

"And Russell didn't even care. He didn't feel the least bit guilty. All he was worried about was whether it could cause any problems for the campaign if people found out about it. That's what we were arguing about in the hotel that night." She paused. "I'm so sorry, Josh. I'm sorry I was ever a part of that campaign. You could have…God, Josh, if you had died in that crash…" The tears spilled down her cheeks.

"I didn't."

"Yeah, but I didn't know that at the time. I spent that whole night in jail thinking you were dead, and it was because of something I did. You have no idea what that felt like."

Her eyes met Josh's steady gaze, and shivered slightly when she saw the look in his eyes. She glanced down, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. Of course you do. Joanie."

He was quiet for a moment. When he did speak, his own voice was choked with emotion. "I was thinking more about Gaza."

"Gaza…" she looked at him in surprise. "Gaza wasn't your fault, Josh. Not at all."

His shook his head. "We both know that isn't true, Donna. I'm the one who sent you there. You didn't have to be there, but I sent you anyway. I knew how dangerous it was. Those State Department travel warnings are there for a reason."

"Yes, they are, and I read them too. I wanted to go to Gaza, Josh. I knew the risks. It wasn't your fault." She paused. "It's not the same thing. You were trying to give me an opportunity. I was carrying out a campaign strategy, a stupid, slimy, dishonest strategy that I never should have gone along with in the first place. I mean, you said it yourself. You thought the idea that a Democrat would do something like that was so absurd it wasn't even worth commenting on."

Josh cringed. "Oh God, Donna, I'm sorry. I was just shooting my mouth off. I didn't mean…"

"You didn't know it was me you were talking about. I know. But you were right. I mean, can you imagine a presidential debate packed with nutcases like that? I tried to make that happen."

"That doesn't make you responsible for what he did."

She shook her head, unconvinced. "I'm sorry you had to hear about it from Bob Russell. I should have told you; I was just afraid to. I didn't want you to hate me."

He gently traced her lips with his finger. "I could never hate you. You know that."

She shrugged. "Maybe it was just that I hated myself for it, and I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud."

He pulled back slightly and met her eyes. "Don't say that, Donna. It wasn't your fault. You have to let yourself believe that. If you don't…guilt will eat you up inside if you let it. Believe me, I know."

She shuddered and leaned against him. She knew she'd never really believe it hadn't been her fault, any more than Josh would ever believe he hadn't been responsible for what had happened to her in Gaza, or for Joanie's death. But she realized she understood him now in a way she hadn't before. It had crossed her mind once or twice over the past six months that he probably blamed himself for Gaza, but she remembered with a twinge of guilt that she'd almost been annoyed by the thought. _I get blown up, and he even makes _that_ about him_. But now she understood on a visceral level the agony he must have experienced. Only he'd had to deal with weeks of uncertainty, not hours, she realized. She tried to fathom how she'd have survived if the plane hadn't been found for weeks. Or if Josh had been critically injured and she'd had to endure a second hospital vigil, waiting for word on whether he was going to live. She couldn't imagine being able to take the fear and guilt for that long. It broke her heart to think that was what he had gone through after that roadside bomb had exploded.

Then an awful thought crossed her mind. She pulled back and looked at him. "Josh, you didn't…you didn't think that was why I left, did you? Because you sent me to Gaza?"

"I…" he hesitated. "I mean, I'd have understood if you had."

"Oh Josh." Her heart ached. "I'm sorry. I never should have left the way I did. I didn't mean to…"

"Shh." He kissed her softly. "It doesn't matter anymore."

She leaned against him for a moment. After a moment, she spoke, her voice quiet. "I stopped for red lights."

Josh pulled back in surprise. "What?"

"Do you remember when I told you if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights?"

He smiled. "Yeah, I remember."

"When I heard about the crash, I just kept working on the campaign. I didn't even…" new tears filled her eyes. "It wasn't because I didn't care, Josh. You have to know that. It was just the opposite. The thought that you might be…it was so awful that I couldn't even stand to think about it. It was easier just to try and pretend it wasn't happening. Or at least I thought it was easier, but apparently it wasn't, considering it led to me pushing the Vice President into a table."

"The Vice President being a world-class asshole led to you pushing him into a table."

She didn't smile. "You checked yourself out of the hospital when you heard I was in trouble – which was incredibly stupid, and you'd better not ever do anything like that again – but you did it. And I didn't even leave the campaign trail." She paused. "I don't deserve you."

"I bet if you took a poll, the majority of respondents would say it was the other way around."

"They'd be wrong."

Josh's response was to bring his mouth to hers for a long, tender kiss. "I love you," he whispered huskily when they finally parted.

"I love you too."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Josh and Donna were in the cab on the way back to the hotel when they got the news. Bob Russell had done what he could generally be counted on to do: he'd acted in his own best interest. He needed the news cycle about the incident in the hotel to end, and since his attempt to intimidate Donna into giving him some political cover had failed, he'd had no choice but to end it on his own. Donna got a phone call from her attorney, who told her that the Vice President had asked the prosecutor to drop the charges.

"Thank God," Josh commented when she told him

She just nodded, closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder.

After a few moments, Josh spoke. "So with that resolved, I see no reason why you can't work on the Santos campaign." He turned to face her. "What do you think?"

She smiled. "I think I can't report to you."

"We'd have you report directly to the congressman."

She thought for a moment. "What you said in that meeting about being a liability…don't you think I'd be a liability on the campaign, given everything? Even with the charges dropped?"

He shook his head. "The only way the media's not going to lose interest in that angle in about 24 hours is if the Russell campaign keeps it alive. And they're not going to do that. They wouldn't be dropping the charges if they didn't want the whole story to go away."

"I don't know."

"Come on. Just tell me what job you want. Believe me, we've got plenty of openings."

She paused. "Will hinted to me a couple times that he thought I'd be a good press secretary. Once I got a little more experience, of course."

"Is that what you wanted to do?"

"It would have been a big promotion."

"That's not what I asked."

She sighed. "I don't know. I mean, I think what I really want to do is…" She paused. "I love learning about the issues, and talking about the issues. That's why I got into politics in the first place. And whenever I started getting too disgusted with Russell's campaign tactics, I'd hole up in my room and study his position papers – which I know he didn't write himself, of course. I think Will wrote most of them, but anyway, I have to admit they were fascinating. And then I'd do more research on my own to decide how much I agreed with his positions. I loved it. It was so much more enjoyable than…you know, doing spin. Which more often than not seems like trying to find ways to lie to the press without actually lying, if you know what I mean."

"It sounds like you learned a lot from him," Josh commented, his voice slightly wistful.

She smiled at him. "I did. But it really wasn't anything I wasn't used to doing already. I did quite a bit of research for you too, if you remember."

He returned her smile. "I remember."

"Not to mention driving you crazy arguing with you about every Bartlet policy that came along that I didn't think I agreed with."

"That didn't drive me crazy," he insisted. "I loved those arguments. I loved _winning_ those arguments," he added with a smirk.

"Oh, that's how you remember it, is it?" she retorted, but couldn't help gazing at him affectionately.

Josh pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Issues director, then. What do you say?"

She felt a sudden wave of nervousness at the title. It sounded like a huge responsibility, even if it was for a campaign considerably smaller than the Vice President's. "You really think I'm ready for that?"

"I know you are."

She gave him a kiss on the cheek, making her decision. "Okay, then."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Josh and Donna arrived at the hotel and went up to the congressman's suite, they were surprised to discover him deep in conversation with Will Bailey.

"What are you doing here?" Donna demanded reflexively. She hoped she hadn't sounded hostile.

Will shrugged. "Applying for a job, I guess."

She sat down next to him. "Yeah, I heard. I can't believe Russell fired you."

Will looked at her in confusion and then laughed. "Is that what he told you? I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"What do you mean?"

"I quit, Donna. I couldn't keep working for him after what he did to you. And after…you know." He paused. "I told the congressman about Peter Burton."

Donna felt a now-familiar sick feeling in her stomach. "I'm so sorry, sir," she said, turning to the congressman. "I feel awful about…what happened."

Matt shook his head. "I can't say I'm impressed with Bob Russell's campaign tactics, but it doesn't make you guys responsible for what that man did."

"Donna knew the whole strategy stunk," Will told him. "She tried to tell me. I didn't listen. Mainly because I knew she was right, but I also knew it was what the Vice President wanted and I had to follow through on it."

"Russell's a piece of work, all right," Josh commented.

"We were talking about communications director for Will," Matt changed the subject. "What do you think, Josh?"

"Sounds good." He glanced at Will. "Nice title, but don't get your hopes up about the salary."

"Hey, I ran a campaign for a dead guy not so long ago. And believe me, right about now I'm missing it. After my run-in with Bingo Bob, I'm happy to go back to being a low-paid, idealistic campaign worker."

"Sounds like you've found the right campaign, then."

Will turned to Donna. "How are you holding up?"

She sighed. "Okay. My lawyer called. Russell's asking for the charges to be dropped. I guess the media talking about 'self-defense' must have freaked him out."

"Yeah, I would imagine."

Something about the way Will said that got Donna's attention. She looked at him curiously. "We never did figure out who gave the self-defense story to the media."

"Yeah, I don't know." Will didn't look at her.

Her eyes widened. "It was _you_, wasn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, Will."

"Okay, so I may have mentioned on background to a reporter that based on my conversations with the Vice President, I thought it was likely that you'd probably make a self-defense case."

"You didn't," Josh stared at him in amazement. He couldn't help but have some doubts about the ethics of using information gained working on someone's campaign to damage that candidate, no matter how sleazy the candidate turned out to be. On the other hand, he was thankful Will had done what he had, and if anyone deserved to have his staffers turn on him, it was Bob Russell.

"I couldn't let him get away with what he'd done. I told him he should drop the charges, that it was the smartest thing for his campaign, but I couldn't be sure he would listen. So I helped him along."

"Thank you," Donna gave Will a friendly kiss on the cheek, causing him to flush slightly.

"Thanks," Josh agreed, sitting down across from them. He paused and added, "I'm not going to kiss you, but thanks."


	14. Epilogue

**Thanks once again to HarmonyLover and chai4anne, and to everyone who has read and/or reviewed this. I hope you enjoyed it!**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Please welcome the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, Matthew Vincente Santos!"

Josh smiled and wrapped an arm around Donna's waist. They stood backstage and watched as Matt strode out onto the stage, thunderous cheers filling the convention hall.

"Who'd have thought back in Iowa and New Hampshire that we'd actually make it here?" Josh commented, shaking his head.

It had been quite a journey. The plane crash had turned out to be the major turning point in the primary. The defections of Donna and Will to the Santos campaign had helped Santos largely solidify the bump in the polls he'd received following the crash. And the Vice President's campaign had faltered. Even with the charges against Donna dismissed, questions about what had happened in that hotel room had lingered. Will's resignation had intensified speculation that, at the very least, Bob Russell had been running a profoundly dysfunctional campaign. Russell's appointment of Harold Saunders as campaign manager had been spun as cynical, and the bruising attacks Saunders was known for had turned out to be much more effective coming from 527s with no accountability for their tactics than when they actually had to go out under the candidate's name.

Russell had formally stayed in the race until after Super Tuesday, but by that point he'd already been firmly relegated to second-tier status. The race had looked like it was going to be a tight two-way contest between Santos and Hoynes, until Hoynes had been brought down by accusations of sexual misconduct with a former Senate staffer. From then on, there had been no looking back. Matt Santos had been the presumptive nominee.

"You thought so," Donna reminded Josh. "You knew all along he could make it. That's why you did all this."

"I thought he _could_ make it. I didn't know for sure he _would_. Believe me, there were times when I wasn't sure how we'd get through the next week, let alone get the nomination." He sighed. "And it's not over yet. Now we have to beat Arnold Vinick. Think we can really pull that off?"

"Yes, I do." She smiled and kissed him. She glanced down at her left hand, her eyes resting on the gorgeous diamond ring she now wore. She was still getting used to the feel of it on her finger. Josh had proposed to her over a romantic dinner the night before. It hadn't been a complete surprise – he wasn't all that good at keeping a secret – but happy tears still filled her eyes whenever she thought about it. The wedding had been tentatively set for late November, when presumably they'd either be preparing for jobs in the Santos administration, or else – God forbid – trying to figure out what their lives and careers would look like once there was no longer a Democrat in the White House.

Whatever the future held, at least they'd be facing it together.


End file.
